Sports Time Radio

It’s the start of August and there are plenty of sports on television for fans to watch and while you’d think it’s a good thing I’m not totally sure it is. Now normally this is just baseball season with sports fans getting ready for football, but with the pandemic we also have the NHL and the NBA playing. This can make things difficult to not only watch, but to keep up with. Are you keeping up? I’m not.

As I’ve mentioned many times I don’t enjoy what the NBA has turned into and all I really do is flip on a game to get a score and then I move on. Watching professional basketball players stand around at the 3-point line and shoot doesn’t interest me. I’m also not interested in watching a guy dunk when he has to travel to do it. I thought that’s what the dunk contest was for. It’s just so boring for me to watch a player drive the lane and either dunk or throw the basketball out to the 3-point line so one of his teammates can launch a 3-pointer. I’m not even going to go into defense in the NBA mostly because it’s nonexistent and if a player seems to try to play defense he’ll be called for a foul. I know that the NBA has lots of fans, but I’m just not one of them.

As for the NHL I guess it’s just the fact that it’s August and they should be preparing for next season not just starting the playoffs. I’m sure the fact that it’s summer and not cold and snowy out like I picture the weather being outside when the NHL plays. I’ve tried multiple times to sit down and watch one of these NHL playoff games, but it just doesn’t hold my attention for more than a few minutes. Maybe I’ll find myself more interested as teams get eliminated, but I’m not actually sure if that will happen or not. at least I have a local team to root for in the NHL playoffs, but who knows if the Chicago Blackhawks will even get out of this play in round or whatever they’re calling it. I think if the Blackhawks could get on a run in these playoffs that might peak my interest, but it just seems weird to me to watch playoff hockey in August.

I don’t believe that either the NBA or the NHL has mentioned when they might try to get what would be their 2020-21 season started. There was some talk about the NBA waiting until Christmas day to open their season, but I haven’t heard any rumors about what the NHL might do.

When the next season finally does open for the NHL and the NBA will they allow the players to travel or will they attempt to do another “bubble” type set up. Would either league try to play a full schedule of games next season? There’s no doubt that both the NHL and the NBA seasons for what would’ve been 2020-21 is going to start late. Will either league try to pay a full 82 game schedule? I’m not sure if either league would be willing to try to do that, but if not what number of games would they come up with? Would they set it up along the lines that Major League Baseball did and have teams play mostly within their division. With the geography of the NHL and the NBA it might be best if they have team just play against conference opponents. Of course the NBA would have to figure out what to do with the Memphis Grizzlies since they are in the Western Conference. The Grizzlies ended up in the Western Conference because when they entered the NBA they played in Vancouver.

What do you think about next season. How many games do you think that the NHL or the NBA might try to play next season?

Obviously I’m not keeping up with the restarted NBA season, but I don’t believe that they’ve even started their playoffs yet. How long is this NBA season going to go? I get that they brought the league back because they wanted to get their hands on as much television and sponsorship money as they could, but it seems ridiculous that they’re still having what would be considered regular season games. At least the NHL is in some sort of playoff situation.

On the plus side when it comes to the NHL and the NBA it seems as though their “bubble” set up is working as I don’t believe either league has reported a positive Covid-19 test since they’ve been playing in the “bubble”. Let’s hope that continues and neither league has to deal with any kind of virus outbreak like MLB has had to. Don’t forget that the NHL has two “bubble” set ups with no positive Covid-19 tests.

MLB had to deal with another team dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak. This time it was the St. Louis Cardinals. I believe the Cardinals ended up with 13 total members of their traveling party testing positive for the Covid-19 virus.

Yesterday St. Louis placed Paul DeJong, Junior Fernandez, Kodi Whitley, Edmundo Sosa, Rangel Ravelo and Yader Molina on the IL. All players have tested positive for Covid-19. Carlos Martinez was also added to the IL yesterday, but his injury was listed as undisclosed.

Due to this outbreak the Cardinals have canceled a four game series in Milwaukee against the Brewers as well as a four game series in Detroit against the Tigers. Even though that series was in Detroit the Cardinals where scheduled to be the home team in two of those games. Major League Baseball also went ahead and canceled the Cardinals game against the Chicago White Sox on August 13th that was scheduled to be played at Field of Dreams in Iowa. As long as the Cardinals can clear Covid-19 testing they’ll restart their season this Friday as they host the Chicago Cubs for the start of a three game series.

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You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime