Sports columnist Roger Millions on the upcoming NHL season
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Summary
Western Standard's own sports columnist, Robyn Mains, joins us to discuss the NHL's COVID threat and what to look forward to in the 2019-20 season. Western Standard is a leading member of the North American Sports Writers Association and is a proud affiliate of the NHL.
Transcript
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hey everybody welcome to a western standard special i've got roger millions our new sports
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columnist on with us today quite a treat and uh we'll talk a little bit about something
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everybody's been starved for for some time we've all been suffering from everything from lack of
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hairstylists to restaurants and a lack of professional hockey. So it looks like a COVID
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NHL season is underway or going to be right away here, Roger. What do you read into? What do people
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look forward to in this? What's going to be hopefully a one season unique sort of hockey
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season? It's going to be unique, Corey. Even today, two teams are shut down their practices,
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that being Columbus and Dallas, just because of the COVID threat.
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Apparently, they've had some testing in their organization.
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So that's just an indication that some of the upheaval we're going to see over and over again.
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I would think with the schedule like it is, particularly in Canada,
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you're going to have teams that are home for a week.
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You're going to have teams that are on the road for the week.
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They have a taxi squad now, which is a good idea by the NHL,
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that will allow five, six, seven players that will be available for them to call up
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You're going to see some cases of COVID without doubt.
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To be honest with you, Corey, I'm not 100% sure what COVID is.
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All I know is it's there and it's threatening our country
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and every other country in the world at this point.
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But the NHL will have some ups and downs throughout the course of this.
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Yeah, well, and we saw that with the state side.
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But there were some games that were terribly lopsided because teams were missing a whole pile of their starters due to COVID issues.
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And I'm certain we'll see that going to the hockey season on and off again this year.
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But, I mean, it's still great to have some hockey to look forward to and watch.
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So we're going to see a higher concentration of Canadian division games just due to the fact of lack of travel, I guess.
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And you've been doing rundowns and breakdowns on what you see ahead for Winnipeg and Vancouver this season.
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And that'll be coming out shortly on Western Standard in terms of our online thoughts on what Calgary might look forward.
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they are basically i think a heavy emphasis on defense and goaltending they of course signed
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jacob markstrom from vancouver as a free agent that's six million dollars a year for the next
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six years so they have committed to him they think he's the goaltender that they haven't had
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since the likes of mika kiprasov they have also added a very solid defender in chris tanev who's
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31 years old he is a very good player he was in vancouver as well but he can give all sorts of
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different ways of handling the defensive structure so I think the Flames themselves kind of felt that
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they gave up too many goals last year and although they did lose to Dallas in the first real round of
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the bubble playoffs that we had in the fall I think that they want to shore up their goaltending
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and their defensive play and they think they have enough offense to win if they do that and they
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just could be right well good we're really looking forward to seeing them out in the ice so with
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challenges for the whole league too. And you talked a bit about that in a prior column with
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they won't be able to get fans into seats. I mean, we don't know if that's going to happen at all
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this season or if they might get a few later, but that puts an extremely heavy burden on these teams
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going forward. Do you think, I mean, if a year from now this is still going on, they're going to
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have to reevaluate things like player budgets and such? Well, they've already done some of that,
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cory what they've done is they've reduced the schedule to 56 games from 81 so they've cut it
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down by almost 25 percent they've also the players have taken a hit uh per uh i don't know what you
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would say but they've kind of graduated their their salaries down that 25 as well plus the
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nhl has reduced cost let's take the canadian north division so to speak a lot of times for instance
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let's use the flames as an example since i'm very familiar with them they'll be in ontario for 10
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days coming up at the end of january early february so very limited travel that's where the
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big cost is in a lot of nhl teams is how they travel from point a to point b and now they won't
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have to charter planes nearly as much so that cost goes down so they've graduated it down where they
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remove some of their costs they've reduced salary just to try to try to keep that profit line in a
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sustainable position but i'm with you i think if this last another year or so then i think we're
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going to see uh some more problems with teams and low budget teams teams like the winnipeg jets i
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hate to say they're they're very limited they're in a very small market of 700 000 people the
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province itself can't drive in to see their games they don't have that much marketing in terms of
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advertising so winnipeg is a team that would really really worry me they don't have that big
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a building in the first place it doesn't matter it's going to be empty but their ability to raise
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money from advertising whether it's going to be on helmets on sweaters which i think is going to
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happen big time in the nhl maybe a little bit to start this year but they're going to have to look
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at additional revenue sources over and above television television will be there winnipeg's
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under contract with tsn the other teams in alberta will be under contract with with sports that
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edmonton and calgary so they have that revenue but how are they going to increase revenue
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and it's all about money and at this point in time the nhl will have to kind of
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take a look at how this year goes and then go from there next year's a whole new matter
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right on well i seem to have lost my beautiful green screen background oh well the crowd comes
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down well that it's good to hear though i mean it's a lot to look forward to uh i know it's
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going to be hard for them without that parking revenue and selling beer and having seats in the
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stands but looks like they're doing everything they can to make a season of it so i'm really
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looking forward to your coverage and analysis of it and uh seeing more you've got more coming out
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in the western standard right away here i believe do you yeah we do we'll have both edmonton and
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calgary coming out before the start of the regular season on wednesday and take a look at them i
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think the oilers are quite exciting i know that they've you know that probably seems strange
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coming from a guy who spent 17 years covering the flames but i did spend seven years in edmonton so
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i know a little bit about them but i think the oilers have improved i i really like their their
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head office uh frontage with uh the people they have there and in terms of dave tippet i think
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he's a great guy and kenny holland as general manager i think the oilers are going to be better
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the flames will have to cut down on goals against to be better i think vancouver is going to be
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fantastic winnipeg i think is going to be a team that'll be challenged just a little bit but the
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the west is going to be fun it's going to be a lot of different angles and as we go through this
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covet hockey season it will be interesting to see how it proceeds all right on well i look forward
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to talking to you as the season progresses and seeing how things develop so thank you very much
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for coming on roger and we'll talk to you again soon all right cory all the best thank you