NHL Targets Tuesday, December 28 For Return, Postpones 14 Monday Games

The NHL was the one league to pause its regular season due to COVID-19 outbreaks within multiple organizations. While the NBA has postponed several games, and the NFL was forced to move three week 15 games, the NHL is the only major professional sports league to take a pause, moving up its scheduled holiday break by a few days. 

The NHL was scheduled to restart the regular season Monday, December 27, but that has now been delayed by at least a day. 

On Friday, the NHL announced that 14 scheduled games on Monday have been postponed, with the season expected to resume Tuesday, December 28. 

“The National Hockey League announced today that its regular-season schedule will not resume prior to Tuesday, Dec. 28,” the NHL said in a statement. “The League had planned to resume its schedule Dec. 27, but in order to allow the League an adequate opportunity to analyse League-wide testing results and to assess Clubs’ readiness to play, the target date for resumption of game play will be pushed back an additional day.” 

“Teams will return to practice on Dec. 26 and it is expected that the League will provide on its return to play plans by the end of day Sunday.”

SCHEDULE UPDATE: @NHL delays return to game play by a day; games on Dec. 27 postponed.https://t.co/UX99dQ0tp1 pic.twitter.com/zZRrGjpt7L

— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 24, 2021

With the 14 games on Monday delayed, the NHL has now postponed 64 regular season games due to COVID-19 issues. On Wednesday, the NHL announced that they will not be sending players to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics due to having to make-up for the games postponed by COVID-19. The league intends to use the scheduled Olympic break to play the postponed games. 

“We’ve sent out communication with clubs and we’re trying to confirm their open building dates, which we have a sense of from earlier communications earlier in the season,” NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said Thursday. “We obviously will work very close with the Players’ Association. I do think we’ll have to build in some off time during that three-week period for the players as they had anticipated previously. There are a lot of boxes to check there, but I expect that we’ll be able to portion some portion of that break period to various clubs to get their players rested, and I hope to make full utilization of the period so that we can make up the games that we’ve missed.”

Concern over NHL participation in the Winter Games grew over the past few weeks as COVID-19 cases continued to increase, and with the potential for a long quarantine in China if a player tests positive while in Beijing for the Olympics. According to reports, the IOC informed the NHL that a player that tests positive for COVID-19 must return two negative tests 24 hours apart or face Chinese quarantine laws, which can last anywhere from 21 days to five weeks.

Many players expressed disappointment over the news, including Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby. 

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of two. I definitely feel for the guys who have missed numerous opportunities,” Crosby said.

“It’s not something where it’s the next year, or you push it a couple months. These are opportunities and experiences of a lifetime that you don’t get very many of as an athlete. You might only get one.”

This will be the second consecutive Olympics in which NHL players will not participate, with NHL players not taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics due to not wanting to disrupt the 2017-2018 NHL regular season. The Olympic rosters will now be made up of amateur players and professional players from leagues other than the NHL.

Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].

The Daily Wire is fighting Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate in federal court. Join us in this fight by signing our petition to OSHA, telling them that you will not comply with this mandate.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases