Yesterday was as surreal a day as I can recall in my lifetime. Well except for maybe the day before.
And that sort of feels like the way it’s going to be for the next little while. It’s going to take some time before things “get back to normal” and even then, it feels like our definition of “normal” is going to change signifcantly.
On Thursday, the NHL did the inevitable and hit the pause button on the NHL season. Here’s the official statement from Commissioner Gary Bettman.
What comes next is really anyone’s guess.
The NHL is going to take a wait and see approach to all this because frankly, that’s the only choice they have. While the messaging out of the Board of Governors meeting was focused on the hope they’ll be able to pick up the season where they left off, the reality is they just don’t know.
Nobody knows.
From the perspective of Sens fans, there are a ton of unanswered questions about what happens with the Draft Lottery.
Do they use points percentage as a way to determine the final standings? Do they just draft in order of standings? Is there even still a lottery and will anything be done to shift the percentages to favour other non-playoff teams? And does the April 9th date still have any significance or are we on an entirely new timeline now?
Again, nobody knows.
While I’m sure those conversations have happened at the league office, their priorities are clearly elsewhere right now. And because it’s a “pause” and not a “cancellation”, you would think they’ll need to wait and see before making any sort of definitive decision about the lottery.
And that’s where things stand.
We’ll try to keep things going around here during the downtime as much as possible. Our three years without a meaningful hockey game should serve as good training for this down time
If you have ideas for things you’d like to see, feel free to leave them in the comment section below.
In the meantime, let’s start a little video walk down memory lane. A history lesson of sorts.
We’ll start in the early days with the story of how the franchise came to be, the actual Hockey Night in Canada opening from their first game against Montreal and video of Neil Brady scoring the first goal in franchise history.
The good ol’ days.
