The 2020 NHL Stanley “Covid” Cup Playoffs
2020 will go down as one of the weirdest years in modern history, and what happened this year with the NHL season was no exception. On Monday, September 28, 2020, over a year after the 2019-2020 season’s initial training camp, the NHL awarded the Tampa Bay Lightning with the Stanley Cup. While the Bolts finally hoisting the Cup was considered by many smart bettors as the most predictable ending to a season, the path to this ending was by far the most unpredictable, because not but five months prior we did not know if we would even see the Cup awarded at all. Covid-19 had kept fans shut in their homes, rinks shut down in their arenas, and neighboring countries shut down from each other. The NHL was nearing 90% complete by the beginning of March when everything stopped. But months later, and against all odds, the NHL managed to pull off a minor miracle and conclude the season. Although, this playoff was not without its quirks, oddities, and downright unprecedented moments. From bubble cities and empty arenas to the quickest playoff with the most teams ever, the 2020 NHL Playoffs will forever be labeled as the strangest NHL Playoffs in NHL history.
The NHL debated endlessly over how the post-season would be conducted. Along with the NBA, the NHL Commissioner and executives were going to follow the science and precedents set by state and federal governments. The USA and Canada had closed their border to each other, ending the chance of teams traveling to play each other. On top of that, to run a facility as an organization takes quite a bit of money and since fans were barred from attending games, it wouldn’t have been financially feasible for some of the competing teams to run games. The NHL instead decided to look to a bubble system. The idea was that if you test any and all individuals looking to enter the bubble prior, they test negative, you can isolate these individuals from the outside world, greatly reducing the chance of a Covid outbreak that would disrupt, perhaps eliminate any chances of completing the season. The NHL had many options for their bubble cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and even Chicago. Instead, however, the NHL decided to give the bid to two of Canada’s most prominent cities and their relatively new and state of the art facilities. The Eastern Conference bubble would be in Toronto, Ontario and all games would be played at Scotiabank Arena. The West would be hosted in Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton, Alberta. The bubbles both included the lodging of prominent hotels near the facilities and other facilities including a football arena to provide the “bubbled” with some activities to keep them busy when they weren’t playing hockey. The NHL would play all games in only two arenas with no fans in the building, something we have never seen unless you’ve ever been to a Florida Panthers game. For the first time ever, the playoffs would not have any “home ice advantage” where fans bring their passion and energy for motivation. The bubble arenas had their stands tarped over and large screens were added in the upper levels to create a dynamic and lively atmosphere to offset the lack of loud and passionate fans. Fans at home were told that fake fan noise would be dubbed into the broadcast to help simulate the ambience, which interestingly was more effective than many predicted. Over 125 games were played with no fans, fake noise, and players asked to bring their own energy and motivation to their play, strange indeed. It was weird knowing that the teams of the host cities would have to relinquish their locker rooms to other teams in the league, including intense rivals. I can imagine how weird it would be for teams to not have their home rink and all the familiarities that come with it. What was perhaps the strangest part of the bubble was the fact that I forgot there were no fans nearly two shifts into watching my Edmonton Oilers play the Calgary Flames in their exhibition game before the official playoffs. The sounds were oddly familiar, and the tarped stands didn’t stand out, but perhaps most strange was how normal the players seemed. That sounds weird, I know, but the hockey was intense, fast, and exciting. The players did an excellent job bringing their passion and love for the game despite not having a physical audience to play for. For all games, the play was increasingly intense and exciting, very much like you’d expect any other playoffs to play out. It was strange indeed that all games were played in the same arenas, we didn’t see a crazed fan bang on the glass in the corners, and didn’t hear the “boos” when Corey Perry touched the puck in the Stanley Cup Finals; but strangest of all the hockey felt real, organic, and fun. Best of all, the bubble made it possible for the season to award its champion.
On August 1, the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs commenced. Due to the fact that there were still games to be played prior to the shut down and 16 teams had not established their place in the league hierarchy, the NHL decided to bring back 24 teams, including teams that were on the outside looking into the playoffs. This was to give the teams that were not “mathematically” eliminated their chance to clinch a playoff spot. The top 12 teams in the West and East based on percentage of points relative to games played were given a chance to enter the playoffs and compete for Lord Stanley’s Cup. The NHL deemed everything prior the shut down as the regular season, so the post-season was going to commence with more teams than we have ever seen. So, in order to bring the league to the typical 16 team/4 round playoff, the NHL needed to weed out four teams in both conferences. The top four teams in each conference, based on the aforementioned ranking system, were given automatic bids into the final 16 and instead each played each other among their conference to determine the top four seeds. The other 16 teams of the 24 played a best of 5 series against a conference opponent that would determine the bottom seeded teams to make up the typical 16 team playoff. We haven’t ever seen a fifth added to the playoffs, and never have we seen this many teams compete for the Stanley Cup. Strangely enough, a team with about a 5% chance of making the playoffs prior to the March shut down went up considerably a team that had a near 98% chance to make the playoffs went down considerably. Never have we seen such a material change of odds and in fact we saw the then 12th seed team upset the 5th seed team in that qualifying round over an amount of 5 games. For a team who otherwise was planning their offseason to draw into the playoffs, it kept things interesting. This system, while it had its flaws, did give the most teams their chance to make the playoffs and the amount of hockey we were able to see on top of the typical playoff rounds was quite exciting and new. Now you’d think that despite having one extra round of playoffs, the entire post-season would last even longer playoffs than normal, but not this year. In what seemed like a record 69 days, we completed the entire 5 round post-season that included three game 7’s in the second round. For the first time in many years the teams played at least one back to back game in their series, except for the third round. Even the Stanley Cup Final had a back to back game! The reasons for the urgency was two-fold, finances and those in bubble needed to get out as soon as possible. The bubble kept most players from their families and from their daily routine, inducing boredom and in some cases mental health complications. It took a lot for these athletes and personnel to willingly enter a bubble for nearly 70 days and compete at this level. This bubble life lacked the travel of normal playoffs and less home-based distractions, allowing the players to keep focus solely on the task at hand. This made for faster hockey playoffs in some cases, a problem some people have in other playoffs in later rounds. Typically, the hockey part of things tends to slow down and become a true battle of attrition, but the less variables led to faster, healthier, and more exciting hockey in most cases. Every team was on the same playing field, having months of rest to get their team healthy prior to entering the bubble. There was no travel, no distractions, and no home ice energy.
Overall, this Stanley Cup Final was different because in many people’s minds, including my own, all teams were on a nearly equal playing field. We didn’t have travel to put more stresses on the western conference teams who travel much more than the eastern conference. The teams had time to get healthy and there was no home ice advantage with home team fans bringing the other half of the energy that players bring every night. All teams who had some momentum coming into March were negated and those teams packing it in for the season assuming they’d be done in two weeks were given a second life. Everything that led to March was completely negated. The bubble put challenges on players mentally and emotionally, they were far from their families, their own beds, their own sense of normalcy. Many reports say the players were really getting over the bubble side of things and were very much looking to get out. This is a feeling most players in the bubble never experienced during a playoff run, adding to the difficulty of winning. The Stanley Cup is considered the most prized trophies in all of sports and many consider it the hardest trophy to win due to hockey’s already unique, equitable, and fierce nature. Anybody can win on any given day and we saw many upsets and interesting storylines that left jaws on floors. I commend the NHL for pulling off what was thought to be impossible and gave us a post-season to remember forever. I thank the players for their sacrifice in the bubble, taking on an elevated mental stressor and distancing from their families and facing boring days of doing the same thing over and over again just for an attempt to win the Stanley Cup. There are many post-seasons even I forget about, I have to look-up who played and who won mostly because they were status quo and years tend to blend together. Not to say there were no huge storylines in past post-seasons, but this post-season was dynamic storyline. We never knew what we were going to get day in and day out, and it kept longtime fans and new fans very engaged and excited to see who would win. Yes, the most predictable team ended up hoisting the Stanley Cup this year but the path to get there was in no way predictable. From one of the fastest NHL post-seasons despite having the most games in history to arenas void of fans but full of energy, we were gifted with one of the most amazing, weird, and unforgettable NHL Post-Seasons of all time.