{"id":123492,"date":"2021-12-31T17:39:02","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T22:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=123492"},"modified":"2021-12-31T17:39:02","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T22:39:02","slug":"nhl-games-postponed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/12\/31\/nhl-games-postponed\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Games Postponed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There were numerous NHL games postponed today, including eight Canadian home dates.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">SCHEDULE UPDATE: The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@NHL<\/a> announced today that eight additional games will be rescheduled for dates later in the season. <\/p>\n<p>Details: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/8EuE4xfrpV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/8EuE4xfrpV<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/B2Y1Ra5Gyw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/B2Y1Ra5Gyw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NHLPR\/status\/1477016118137139202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 31, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>All About the Money<\/h2>\n<p>Different jurisdictions of Canada announced strict gathering limits for sporting events recently. Ontario has <a href=\"https:\/\/toronto.ctvnews.ca\/ontario-reducing-capacity-limits-at-large-spectator-venues-to-1-000-people-1.5723604\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">dropped the attendance limit<\/a> to just 1,000 for &#8220;large sporting and entertainment events&#8221; after previously limiting events to 50 percent. <a href=\"https:\/\/www2.gov.bc.ca\/gov\/content\/covid-19\/info\/restrictions\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">British Columbia<\/a> has been at 50 percent attendance since December 22nd. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alberta.ca\/covid-19-public-health-actions.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alberta likewise<\/a> since December 24th. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quebec.ca\/en\/health\/health-issues\/a-z\/2019-coronavirus\/measures-in-force\/activities-outings\/events-shows\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Quebec&#8217;s new restrictions<\/a> have suspended all indoor events and placed severe limits on outdoor ones.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL is still a gate-driven league, with a far greater proportion of team income coming from fans in attendance. As a consequence, the NHL has decided that teams will lose less money by delaying games that have attendance restrictions until those restrictions are no longer in place. It isn&#8217;t just ticket sales, of course, but also ancillary income from everything sold during a game. It&#8217;s a gamble, but between the various jurisdictions trying to limit the rapid spread of COVID-19 and a schedule that&#8217;s already in some turmoil&#8230; what is being risked has decreasing value anyway.<\/p>\n<h3>Disappointing, Not Surprising<\/h3>\n<p>The NHL has postponed the following games:<\/p>\n<p>Monday, January 3rd: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/wild\/\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Wild<\/a> @ <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/jets\/\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a><br \/>\nWednesday, January 5th: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/islanders\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Islanders<\/a> @ <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/canucks\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a><br \/>\nSaturday, January 8th: Islanders @ <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a><br \/>\nTuesday, January 11th: Islanders @ <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flames\/\" target=\"_self\">Calgary Flames<\/a><br \/>\nWednesday, January 12th: Minnesota @ Edmonton<br \/>\nFriday, January 14th: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/vegas-golden-knights\/\" target=\"_self\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> @ Edmonton<br \/>\nSaturday, January 15th: Vegas @ Calgary<br \/>\nSunday, January 16th: Edmonton @ Winnipeg<\/p>\n<p>The team hardest hit by the delay is clearly the New York Islanders. In addition to their Canadian swing, the Islanders also had their planned trip to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/seattle-kraken\/\" target=\"_self\">Seattle Kraken<\/a> delayed. Logically enough, given the cost of a cross-continent flight for a single game, that&#8217;s expensive.<\/p>\n<p>As we saw last year, the NHL will do everything possible to play <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/04\/01\/vancouver-canucks-games-postponed\/\" target=\"_self\">any games postponed<\/a>. While it won&#8217;t result in another bubble &#8211; even if it is more secure than the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iihf.com\/en\/events\/2022\/wm20\/news\/31434\/world_juniors_cancelled\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">World Juniors fiasco<\/a> &#8211; there have been changes already. Taxi squads have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/12\/26\/how-the-new-nhl-taxi-squad-will-work\/\" target=\"_self\">already returned<\/a> for this season, up until the planned All-Star Break at least. At the very least, teams and the league have experience with sudden changes. It should, in theory, be a little easier to deal with this time.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"XeXMT7z0TPFLWq5TDq9S6Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/576943802\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'XeXMT7z0TPFLWq5TDq9S6Q',sig:'t7QJ09GimH1OAlSt0wetWA86r8H5Ni0m6B8mayB9_eU=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'576943802',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There were numerous NHL games postponed today, including eight Canadian home dates. SCHEDULE UPDATE: The @NHL announced today that eight additional games will be rescheduled for dates later in the season. Details: https:\/\/t.co\/8EuE4xfrpV pic.twitter.com\/B2Y1Ra5Gyw &mdash; NHL Public Relations (@NHLPR) December 31, 2021 All About the Money Different jurisdictions of Canada announced strict gathering limits for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3171,"featured_media":123499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4548,22,23,4547,30,17,34,5369,26,807,33],"tags":[6745,4675],"class_list":["post-123492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl","category-flames","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-wild","category-islanders","category-news","category-seattle-kraken","category-canucks","category-vegas-golden-knights","category-jets","tag-2021-22-nhl-schedule","tag-covid-19"],"modified_by":"William Grigsby","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}