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NHL, players ratify Return to Play Plan, six-year CBA amid COVID-19 uncertainties – TSN

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Game on.

Well, almost.

The NHL Players’ Association and the NHL’s Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly on Friday to ratify a sweeping agreement that includes a six-year Collective Bargaining Agreement and a Return to Play Plan that brings hockey back after a historic, 142-day pause.

According to sources, the NHLPA’s full membership voted 502 to 135 with 78.8 per cent in favour, while the league’s vote was unanimous, as expected. Both only required simple majorities to pass.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman lauded the stakeholders involved “for coming together under extraordinary circumstances for the good of our game.”

“This agreement is a meaningful step forward for the players and owners, and for our game, in a difficult and uncertain time,” NHLPA executive director Don Fehr said in a statement.

Now, after months of heavy lifting with two sides hammering out the game’s first peace-time labour agreement in three-plus decades, the NHL’s real dance on thin ice begins.

The NHL’s owners have said ‘yes.’ The NHL’s players have said ‘yes.’ Now, they only need the cooperation of a virus that has claimed the lives of more than a half million people worldwide over the past six months.

Yes, the road back to the rink is one paved in peril, but the lure of hockey’s holy grail and more than a 100 years of history is on the other side.

The NHL and NHLPA must safely navigate the arrival of 744 players and hundreds of staffers in two secure ‘bubbles’ in Toronto and Edmonton and avoid a mass-outbreak of COVID-19 in order to drop the puck in three weeks from Saturday on Aug. 1.

Once settled inside, the NHL is confident its strict protocol will minimize the risk of an outbreak in an effort to award the Stanley Cup by Oct. 4 in Edmonton. Every player and every person – from team staff to hotel housekeepers – who has a chance of coming in contact with a player will be tested daily. Any positive test will require isolation and contact tracing. The NHL says it can manage individual or multiple isolated positive tests, but it has not defined what it would take to put play on pause again or put a pin in the bubble, either due to health risks or the integrity of the game.

“While we have all worked very hard to try to address the risks of COVID-19, we know that health and safety are and will continue to be our priorities,” Bettman said Friday.

Cautiously make it through training camp. Then into the bubble without many flare-ups.

Then Giddy Up.

What awaits is March Madness on steroids. The blood-and-guts intensity of the Stanley Cup playoffs, for 14 hours a day, for nine days straight. And then the first round begins. 

To start, it will be games from 12 noon well past midnight in the East – or longer with the delirious joy of playoff overtimes.

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The NHL’s top eight teams will battle each other in round-robin games for seeding, while the other 16 teams will fight in a best-of-five to see who survives to the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Then a traditional, 16-team playoff with four rounds decided by best-of-seven, will take over as planned.

Everyone, even the losing teams, have something to look forward to in the qualifying round.

Every player in the hubs will have the day off on Aug. 10, when the Draft Lottery is scheduled to take centre stage. The eight teams that fail to qualify for the playoffs will go home with an equal 12.5 per cent chance at the No. 1 overall pick and Alexis Lafreniere.

With Oct. 4 scheduled as the last possible day of the Stanley Cup Final, the 2020 NHL Draft is tentatively slated for Oct. 9-10 and will likely be held virtually.

Until then, with the only travel scheduled for when the Toronto hub victors shift to Edmonton by Sept. 8 to begin the Conference Finals, the NHL plans to zoom through each round as quickly as possible in order to minimize time spent in the bubble.

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There will be sacrifice for all involved. Players advancing will go a minimum of five weeks away from their families before they are permitted to enter the bubble during the Conference Finals. The hundreds of staffers and officials will not have the same opportunity.

The motivation to complete the 2019-20 season in the face of a pandemic is undoubtedly driven by business. More than $400 million USD is at stake in a two-month tournament, plus the priceless tradition of carrying on the Stanley Cup.

The NHL and its players have faced the grim financial reality that remains. The new six-year CBA, which guarantees labour peace through at least 2025-26, is not a rosy one for the players. It’s akin to an adjustable rate mortgage – with the players paying back the owners a nine-figure promissory note – with the resulting escrow cap serving as the interest rate.

During that time, the players’ house won’t appreciate much in value because there is little room for growth with a relatively frozen salary cap for much of the next four or five seasons. Only the NHL’s best and brightest stars won’t feel the cap crunch coming.

The trouble for the players – and really the hawk owners who wanted the entire amount owing from players to be paid back now on the spot – was that there wasn’t much of a viable alternative.

That meant Friday, even with more than a fifth of the NHL’s players expressing their dissatisfaction, was the next in a series of critical (if not plodding) steps forward to get the game going again.

Some 368 days after the season started, Lord Stanley’s chalice awaits now – if COVID can cooperate.

Contact Frank Seravalli on Twitter: @frank_seravalli

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Champions Trophy host Pakistan says it’s not been told India wants to play cricket games elsewhere

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November 8, 2024

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LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A top official of the Pakistan Cricket Board declined Friday to confirm media reports that India has decided against playing any games in host Pakistan during next year’s Champions Trophy.

“My view is if there’s any problems, they (India) should tell us in writing,” PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi told reporters in Lahore. “I’ll share that with the media as well as with the government as soon as I get such a letter.”

Indian media reported Friday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has communicated its concerns to all the Champions Trophy stakeholders, including the PCB, over the Feb. 19-March 9 tournament and would not play in arch-rival Pakistan.

The Times of India said that “Dubai is a strong candidate to host the fixtures involving the Men in Blue” for the 50-over tournament.

Such a solution would see Pakistan having to travel to a neutral venue to play India in a group match, with another potential meeting later in the tournament if both teams advanced from their group. The final is scheduled for March 9 in Pakistan with the specific venue not yet decided.

“Our stance is clear,” Naqvi said. “They need to give us in writing any objections they may have. Until now, no discussion of the hybrid model has happened, nor are we prepared to accept one.”

Pakistan hosted last year’s Asia Cup but all India games were played in Sri Lanka under a hybrid model for the tournament. Only months later Pakistan did travel to India for the 50-over World Cup.

Political tensions have stopped bilateral cricket between the two nations since 2008 and they have competed in only multi-nation tournaments, including ICC World Cups.

“Cricket should be free of politics,” Naqvi said. “Any sport should not be entangled with politics. Our preparations for the Champions Trophy will continue unabated, and this will be a successful event.”

The PCB has already spent millions of dollars on the upgrade of stadiums in Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi which are due to host 15 Champions Trophy games. Naqvi hoped all the three stadiums will be ready over the next two months.

“Almost every country wants the Champions Trophy to be played here (in Pakistan),” Naqvi said. “I don’t think anyone should make this a political matter, and I don’t expect they will. I expect the tournament will be held at the home of the official hosts.”

Eight countries – Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Afghanistan – are due to compete in the tournament, the schedule of which is yet to be announced by the International Cricket Council.

“Normally the ICC announces the schedule of any major tournament 100 days before the event, and I hope they will announce it very soon,” Naqvi said.

___

AP cricket:

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Dabrowski, Routlife into WTA doubles final with win over Melichar-Martinez, Perez

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November 8, 2024

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Ottawa‘s Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe of New Zealand are through to the doubles final at the WTA Finals after a 7-6 (7), 6-1 victory over Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the United States and Australia’s Ellen Perez in semifinal action Friday.

Dabrowski and Routliffe won a hard-fought first set against serve when Routliffe’s quick reaction at the net to defend a Perez shot gave the duo set point, causing Perez to throw down her racket in frustration.

The second seeds then cruised through the second set, winning match point on serve when Melichar-Martinez couldn’t handle Routliffe’s shot.

The showdown was a rematch of last year’s semifinal, which Melichar-Martinez and Perez won in a super tiebreak.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will face the winner of a match between Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, and Hao-Ching Chan and Veronika Kudermetova in the final on Saturday.

Dabrowski is aiming to become the first Canadian to win a WTA Finals title.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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Winger Tajon Buchanan back with Canada after recovering from broken leg

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November 8, 2024

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Inter Milan winger Tajon Buchanan, recovered from a broken leg suffered in training at this summer’s Copa America, is back in Jesse Marsch’s Canada squad for the CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal against Suriname.

The 25-year-old from Brampton, Ont., underwent surgery July 3 to repair a fractured tibia in Texas.

Canada, ranked 35th in the world, plays No. 136 Suriname on Nov. 15 in Paramaribo. The second leg of the aggregate series is four days later at Toronto’s BMO Field.

There is also a return for veteran winger Junior Hoilett, who last played for Canada in June in a 4-0 loss to the Netherlands in Marsch’s debut at the Canadian helm. The 34-year-old from Brampton, now with Scotland’s Hibernian, has 15 goals in 63 senior appearances for Canada.

Midfielder Ismael Kone, recovered from an ankle injury sustained on club duty with France’s Marseille, also returns. He missed Canada’s last three matches since the fourth-place Copa America loss to Uruguay in July.

But Canada will be without centre back Derek Cornelius, who exited Marseille’s win Sunday over Nantes on a stretcher after suffering an apparent rib injury.

The Canadian men will prepare for Suriname next week at a camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“We are looking forward to getting the group together again with the mindset that there is a trophy on the line,” Marsch said in a statement. “We want to end 2024 the right way with two excellent performances against a competitive Suriname squad and continue building on our tremendous growth this past summer.”

The quarterfinal winners advance to the Nations League Finals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., with the two semifinals scheduled for March 20 and the final and third-place playoff March 23, and qualify for the 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Thirteen of the 23 players on the Canadian roster are 25 or younger, with 19-year-old defender Jamie Knight-Lebel, currently playing for England’s Crewe Alexandra on loan from Bristol City, the youngest.

Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies captains the side with Stephen Eustaquio, Jonathan Osorio, Richie Laryea, Alistair Johnston and Kamal Miller adding veteran support.

Jonathan David, Cyle Larin and Theo Bair are joined in attack by Minnesota United’s Tani Oluwaseyi.

Niko Sigur, a 21-year-old midfielder with Croatia’s Hadjuk Split, continues in the squad after making his debut in the September friendly against Mexico.

Suriname made it to the Nations League quarterfinals by finishing second to Costa Rica in Group A of the Nations League, ahead of No. 104 Guatemala, No. 161 Guyana and unranked Martinique and Guadeloupe.

“A good team,” Osorio said of Suriname. “These games are always tricky and they’re not easy at all … Suriname is a (former) Dutch colony and they’ll have Dutch players playing at high levels.”

“They won’t be someone we overlook at all,” added the Toronto FC captain, who has 81 Canada caps to his credit.

Located on the northeast coast of South America between Guyana and French Guiana, Suriname was granted independence in 1975 by the Netherlands.

Canada has faced Suriname twice before, both in World Cup qualifying play, winning 4-0 in suburban Chicago in June 2021 and 2-1 in Mexico City in October 1977.

The Canadian men, along with Mexico, the United States and Panama, received a bye into the final eight of the CONCACAF Nations League.

Canada, No. 2 in the CONCACAF rankings, drew Suriname as the best-placed runner-up from League A play.

Canada lost to Jamaica in last year’s Nations League quarterfinal, ousted on the away-goals rule after the series ended in a 4-4 draw. The Canadians lost 2-0 to the U.S. in the final of the 2022-23 tournament and finished fifth in 2019-20.

Canada defeated Panama 2-1 last time out, in an Oct. 15 friendly in Toronto.

Goalkeepers Maxime Crepeau and Jonathan Sirois, defenders Joel Waterman, Laryea and Miller and Osorio took part in a pre-camp this week in Toronto for North America-based players.

Canada Roster

Goalkeepers: Maxime Crepeau, Portland Timbers (MLS); Jonathan Sirois, CF Montreal (MLS); Dayne St. Clair, Minnesota United FC (MLS).

Defenders: Moise Bombito, OGC Nice (France); Alphonso Davies, Bayern Munich (Germany); Richie Laryea, Toronto FC (MLS); Alistair Johnston, Celtic (Scotland); Jamie Knight-Lebel. Crewe Alexandra, on loan from Bristol City (England); Kamal Miller, Portland Timbers (MLS); Joel Waterman, CF Montreal (MLS).

Midfielders: Ali Ahmed. Vancouver Whitecaps (MLS); Tajon Buchanan, Inter Milan (Italy); Mathieu Choiniere, Grasshopper Zurich (Switzerland); Stephen Eustaquio, FC Porto (Portugal); Junior Hoilett, Hibernian FC (Scotland); Ismael Kone, Olympique Marseille (France); Jonathan Osorio, Toronto FC (MLS); Jacob Shaffelburg, Nashville SC (MLS); Niko Sigur, Hadjuk Split (Croatia).

Forwards: Theo Bair, AJ Auxerre (France); Jonathan David, LOSC Lille (France); Cyle Larin, RCD Mallorca (Spain); Tani Oluwaseyi, Minnesota United (MLS).

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.

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