Every province in Canada that has a National Hockey League franchise has dropped their attendance due to COVID-19 restrictions. Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba are not allowed any fans in the building. While British Columbia and Alberta are at 50% capacity in their arenas.
The restrictions in those provinces will likely be in effect for the next month or so. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said the other day that at some point this month, the Canadian teams will have to resume games whether they have fans in attendance or not because the NHL has very little wiggle room if they want to finish the season by April 29th. The NHL already has to reschedule over 90 games due to COVID-19 and postponing more due to having no fans in attendance isn't an option.
In his 32 Thoughts article on Tuesday, Elliotte Friedman mentioned that one NHL executive wondered if any Canadian team would consider playing home games in Saskatchewan, who is still allowing full capacity in all of their venues.
"Interesting question posed by one executive: would any Canadian teams consider temporarily playing home games at the 15,000-seat SaskTel Centre, home of the WHL's Saskatoon Blades? Saskatchewan is still allowing full capacity at this time. Obviously, the NHL, the NHLPA and the province would have to approve," Friedman said.
It's certainly an interesting proposition, but it's probably quite unlikely that it'll come to fruition. If it does though, geographically the Winnipeg Jets would be a good fit temporarily in Saskatoon. They more than likely have a big fan base within the province of Saskatchewan, so the Jets would have no problem selling out Sasktel Centre.
Source: Elliotte Friedman - 32 Thoughts.
