Sports Time Radio

Once the Covid-19 pandemic shutdown sports all of the fans have been wondering when they would be returning. Now the big three sports have all announced their plans to return, but the National Hockey League was first and we haven’t heard much from them since, but yesterday there was some news.

While the National Basketball Association plans on holding all of it’s game in one place that they describe as a ‘bubble” the NHL is looking for two what they’re calling “hub” cities to play their games in. The NHL had been considering eight cities to host games, but yesterday the list was cut to six cities.

Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver have made the cut so far, with Pittsburgh and Dallas eliminated Tuesday. Columbus was scratched off the list Monday.

The NHL has been hoping to find two cities in different time zones to help with television scheduling. Las Vegas has always been the front runner to be one of the hub cities, but which city will get the other set of games; well it’s wide open.

The NHL is planning on playing the Western Conference playoffs in one city and then have the Eastern Conference playoffs in the other city. It’s currently unclear where the Stanley Cup Finals would be played, but you’d have to think that one of the two hub cities would host it.

Last week the Canadian government told the NHL that they’d be allowed to quarantine internally. This news immediately moved Edmonton, Toronto and Vancouver to the front of the NHL’s hub cities list with Las Vegas. There is a very good chance that the NHL playoffs could be played exclusively in Canadian cities.

Even with the list cut to six possible host cities there has been o date set by the NHL on when they might make an announcement of where they’ll be playing. There was an original July date set for the playoffs to start; so the NHL still has some time to narrow down their list, but hopefully will find out soon.

Where do you think the NHL will end up playing their games? It has seemed that they really want to play in Las Vegas, but like I mentioned those three Canadian cities look really good right now. The other two choices would be big cities; Chicago and Los Angeles. Could they offer the NHL what they’ll need to play their?

As for me I honestly don’t care where the NHL ends up playing these games; I just want to be able to watch hockey again.

As the NBA tries to get the remainder of their season played in Orlando Florida one of the things they mentioned was that if a player was uncomfortable returning to play there would be no penalty with the exception of a dock in pay. It appears as though we have one player right now who’s going to skip the restart of the NBA season.

Avery Bradley has informed his team the Los Angeles Lakers and the league that he will not be taking part in the games in Orlando.

Bradley has three children with his wife Ashley and his oldest son Liam Bradley has a history of struggling to recover from respiratory illnesses. This would make it very unlikely that Liam would be cleared to enter the NBA bubble set up.

Bradley is in first year with the Lakers. He’s played in 49 games this season starting 44 of them. He’s averaging 8.6 points per game and playing just a little over 24 minutes a game. Bradley is also averaging 2.3 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game for the Lakers this season.

With Bradley’s decision the Lakers will be allowed to sign a player to replace him and it appears that J.R. Smith is the front runner for that roster spot.

Smith is 34 years old and hasn’t played in the NBA this season. Smith also played in just 11 games for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2018-19 season. Of course since Smith spent time with the Cavaliers during the time LeBron James was their this has given him the upper hand in being signed by the Lakers.

It’s doubtful that Smith would be able to fill the role that Bradley played for the Lakers and it appears as though Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will be the player who takes over Bradley’s starting role. Smith will probably have to settle for a role as a bench player who doesn’t see the flor unless the game is a blow out.

Don’t forget that Bradley was one of the few players that supported Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets idea of not playing when the games restarted.

Sitting out will end up costing Bradley about $650,000 dollars, but don’t feel to bad for him. This season with the Lakers was Bradley’s 10th in the NBA and not counting his salary for the 2019-20 season he’s made a little over $51 million dollars in his career.

Now the question becomes; will any other NBA players follow Bradley lead?

Now it was reported yesterday that Denver Nuggets All-NBA Center Nikola Jokic tested positive for the coronavirus in Serbia and his return to the United States to rejoin his team is temporarily delayed. Now according to the protocol the NBA has in place Jokic will need two negative tests within 24 hours in Serbia before he can receive clearance to travel. Then once he arrives in Denver; he’ll need to undergo a cardiac screening and test negative once for the virus.

NBA teams including the Nuggets are scheduled to return to their team facilities on Tuesday to begin testing protocols before they head to Orlando somewhere between July 7th and 9th to begin training camp. Will Jokic be ready to join his teammates by then? Or is their a chance that he might end up missing games because of his positive test.

Denver’s head coach Mike Malone recently disclosed that he also tested positive for the Corona virus while the league was off due to the pandemic. Malone has since been cleared and will be tested again with his team on Tuesday. Hopefully there will be more issues for Malone.

Don’t forget to listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live in BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you cam listen whenever you want.

Feel free to look me up on Twitter @Burketime

Well it looks like the National Hockey League has got it’s plan in place to finish their 2019-20 season. Now all we need to know is the official start date and where they’ll be playing.

This news came out last week and not much of anything has changed. It’s going to be a 24-team playoff format. The top four seeds in each division will get byes and play each other in a round robin tournament while the remaining teams will face off in best of five game series.

Here’s how this shakes out:

In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Bruins (44-14-12, 100 points), Tampa Bay Lightning (43-21-6, 92 points), Washington Capitals (41-20-8, 90 points) and Philadelphia Flyers (41-21-7, 89 points) will each have a bye and play each other once to determine the order of the top four seeds for the first round of the playoffs.

In the Western Conference, the St. Louis Blues (42-19-10, 94 points), Colorado Avalanche (42-20-8, 92 points), Vegas Golden Knights (39-24-8, 86 points) and Dallas Stars (37-24-8, 82 points) will each have a bye and play round-robin to determine their seeding order.

Back into the Eastern Conference. The Qualifying Round will have four best-of-5 series: the Pittsburgh Penguins (40-23-6, 86 points) vs. the Montreal Canadiens (31-31-9, 71 points); the Carolina Hurricanes (38-25-5, 81 points) vs. the New York Rangers (37-28-5, 79 points); the New York Islanders (35-23-10, 80 points) vs. the Florida Panthers (35-26-8, 78 points); and the Toronto Maple Leafs (36-25-9, 81 points) vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets (33-22-15, 81 points).

While over in the Western Conference best-of-5 qualifying round series are: the Edmonton Oilers (37-25-9, 83 points) vs. the Chicago Blackhawks (32-30-8, 72 points); the Nashville Predators (35-26-8, 78 points) vs. the Arizona Coyotes (33-29-8, 74 points); the Vancouver Canucks (36-27-6, 78 points) vs. the Minnesota Wild (35-27-7, 77 points); and the Calgary Flames (36-27-7, 79 points) vs. the Winnipeg Jets (37-28-6, 80 points).

It seems like the NHL would like to get this started by July 1st, but that hasn’t been made official just yet. It also appears as there will be a two to three week training camp for teams to prepare for this playoff format.

The plan is for these games to be played in two cities which are still undecided. In a perfect world these two cities would be in different time zones to help out the television broadcast, but that’s not a priority according to the NHL. The NHL’s commissioner Gary Bettman has said the decision on the hub cities and when play will begin will depend on COVID-19 conditions, testing ability and government regulations. A comprehensive system for testing will be in place in each hub city, and each team will be permitted to travel a maximum of 50 personnel, including players, coaches and staff.

While it’s still unclear where these games ight be played it does look like the NHL has narrowed it’s choices to 10 cities. Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vancouver are all in the running to host.

If the NHL can get this up and running it will put them in a very interesting position. While we have soccer, NASCAR and the Korean Baseball Organization to watch none of the four what are considered major sports have had a plan in place until this one. Now to be fair the NFL season is still months away and they haven’t missed any games because of this pandemic.

I would be very interested to know if non-NHL fans would tune into these games to get a sports watching fix; so to speak. If they did it could be a big, big opportunity for the NHL to get some new fans.

Major League Baseball ha stated that they’d like to start their season on July 4th weekend and if they did that would hurt the NHL’s drawing power, but with the trouble that the MLB owners are having trying to get a agreement done with the players union it’s looking less and less like they’ll make that July 4th start date.

The other question of course is; what will the National Basketball Association do?

The NBA has announced that they where looking at a two city plan like the NHL is going with, but they knew that they’d be playing games in Orlando Florida and Las Vegas Nevada. It makes sense for the NBA to do this because they play summer league games in these cities.

Unfortunately this is all we know about what the NBA might do. The National Basketball Players Association executive director Michelle Roberts used the term “overwhelming” when discussing if the players wanted to finish the 2019-20 season.

It’s been reported that a joint task force between the NBA and the NBPA has been working together to negotiate the plans for a possible return to action. They reportedly hope to issue guidelines about a return to play before June 1. Roberts does not believe the union will need to vote on these plans because of the collective bargaining that has already taken place through the joint task force and the calls she is making with every team.

It looks like will have to wait and see if we get some news on what the NBA is going to do come June 1st. Will they use a playoff format similar to what the NHL is doing? Or will they actually try and finish the regular season? Hopefully will find out soon.

Let’s say the NHL gets it’s plan off the ground and they start playing on July 1st and maybe the NBA isn’t too far behind. The biggest question of course is; will you be watching? I think right out of the gate it’s almost not going to matter what sport is on just a long as it’s a sport that draws decent interest. Don’t forget that when NASCAR had it’s first race it had over 6.3 million people watch it. Do you think a returning NHL game would do as well or better than that?

Tune in to the live broadcast of Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com. We’ve been starting the podcast at 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday due to Dan the Man’s current work schedule, but hopefully will be returning to our regular 5:30 p.m. start time soon. Of course Schaumburg Stu and I our still start at 5:00 p.m. on Fridays; so listen.

Also if you miss the podcast live remember all you have to do is swing by TuneIn.com and you can listen whenever you want.

You can also find me on Twitter @Burketime

It seems as though the NHL and the NBA have similar plans to restart their seasons. Both leagues are looking into playing their games in just two cities which they’re “hub cities” and while the NHL’s plan has is slowly starting to take shape there is less of an idea on what the NBA might do.

The NHL is going with what would be described as a 24 team conference based playoff format. The top four team in each conference would get first round byes. These top teams would be determined by the standings points percentage of each team when the regular season was stopped on March 12th.

The 5th through 12th seeds would face off in a best of five series to narrow the field down to the traditional 16 team playoff field the NHL normally uses. From there it would be the usual Stanley Cup playoff set up with those 16 teams.

On Monday the NHL’s Commissioner Gary Bettman said that they’ve found 8 or 9 cities that they’d consider using as “hub cities”. The original plan was for the NHL to use just two “hub cities”, but Bettman mentioned the possibility that the NHL could use up to four “hub cities”. It’s unclear which cities are in the running to host these NHL games, but it’s apparent that Las Vegas is a heavy favorite to be one of those cities.

The NHL looks at expanding the playoffs to 24 teams for this season as the best solution for the teams that where near the bottom of the playoff race when the season was stopped. For example the Arizona Coyotes get the 11th seed, but they where just four points out of a wild card spot and they had 12 regular season games left to play.

The National Hockey League Players Association executive board voted to approve a 24 team conference based playoff format presented by the owners for a potential restart of the 2019-20 NHL season sometime this summer.

It does appear that they may be a few items to work out though. One of the issues will be if there will be reseeding in the playoffs. The NHL released just a straight bracket format for this playoff set up, but the players would prefer to see reseeding done after each round.

I’m sure you’re wondering what the Top 4 teams in each conference would do while the other 16 teams are playing in the opening round. Well these teams would face off against each other in a round robin style tournament to stay sharp. It was a concern of the players about what these four teams would do and this round robin tournament would answer that question.

The NHLPA does have some reservations about expanding the playoffs to 24 teams and they’ve said they’d like to see a more traditional 16 team playoff format. With so many teams bunched at the bottom of the standings it seems as though allowing then all to get into the playoffs makes sense since each team had enough regular season games left to make a run into the playoffs.

Do you like the idea the NHL is going with here? I think the more important question is if and when the NHL restarts; will you be watching?

Now the NBA’s plan is much, much less clear, but they’ve also mentioned using the “hub city” style set up like the NHL. Now unlike the NHL the NBA has more or less decided that they’ll play their games in Orlando and Las Vegas; so it would be very similar to their summer league program.

Even though nothing has been decided by the NBA one of the points of contention seems to be if the players will be allowed to leave what was described as the “bubble” locations the teams would be playing in.

Los Angeles Lakers forward Jared Dudley told reporters that “You will be allowed to leave.” This situation was apparently discussed during the conference call the players had with Commissioner Adam Silver and National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts. Dudley did add “Now just because you leave, if we’re going to give you that leeway, if you come back with corona, you can’t play.”

It’s been mentioned that the primary places players will spend their time would  include hotels, gymnasiums and dining areas. While they’re in this “bubble” locations. Commissioner Silver referred to it as a “campus” like environment. Dudley mentioned that “there will be rigorous testing inside the bubble”.

How do you think the NBA players would handle this situation. Do you see some of them leaving the “bubble” location for whatever reason? We’re looking at 30 teams with a minimum of 12 players per team; so that’s going to be a lot of players in the same location looking for something to possibly do.

If a player was to leave the “bubble” location and then tested positive for the Covid-19 virus after returning how would his teammates feel about that player?

Dudley said that it would be “somewhat selfish” for a player to do this, but he believes that the NBA’s frequent testing would show it rather quickly. I myself would be more interested to see how that players teammates handle the situation and how that player ended up being treated.

While it’s been said that players would be allowed to leave the NBA’s “bubble” location you have to wonder if the superstar players like LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Kawhi Leonard or another player at that level would be allowed to leave. Obviously there’s no way they could stop those players for leaving, but these are the type of players that hold their teams future in their hands and a positive Covid-19 test would not only be bad for that player, but could end that players team season.

I’m sure will learn more about what the NHL and the NBA are going to do, but it appears as both leagues are set on finishing their seasons in some way.

Don’t forget to listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the live version of the podcast just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen whenever you’d like.

You can find me on Twitter @Burketime

As us sports fans meander around with just the breadcrumbs that the NFL leaves for us to devour it’s time to make some decisions on the big two sports that currently have their seasons postponed.

It feels like an eternity since the National Hockey League or the National Basketball Association have played a game. At this point unless you’re a hardcore fan of either league do you even care if they comeback? Or is it time for them to just let this season go and move on to next season?

Just off the top of your head; who had the best record in the NHL? Did you know that it was the Boston Bruins with 100 points? Did you get that right?

Okay then we move on. Who has the best record in the NBA? This one might’ve been a little easier for you since the NBA receives more high level media coverage than the NHL does. So did you get this right? It’s the Milwaukee Bucks with a record of 53-12.

Originally the NBA had it’s teams looking into arena availability for as late as August, but lately the biggest news in the NBA is the fact that Shaquille O’Neal had visited the Tiger King zoo. Is this what the NBA has come to.

The NBA, National Basketball Players Association and 2K have partnered to produce an NBA 2K tournament that will air on ESPN and ESPN2 starting Friday, it was announced.

The NBA 2K20 Player Tournament will run through April 11, according to a statement, and will begin airing on ESPN on Friday with a half-hour pre-show at 7 p.m. ET. The tournament will run on ESPN until 8:30 p.m. and then is scheduled to transition to ESPN2 until 11:30 p.m.

The winner of the event will receive $100,000 to give to a charity in support of the Covid-19 relief efforts.

Sixteen NBA players will compete in this event with five of them already being announced. Kevin Durant, Trae Young, Hassan Whiteside, Donovan Mitchell and Devin Booker are the five that have been announced.

Players were seeded based on their player rating in NBA 2K20, with Durant, a 96 overall in the game, as the No. 1 seed. Players who were tied in overall rating were seeded based on tenure in the league.

Here’s the list of the other players that will be competing. Andre Drummond, Zach LaVine, Montrezl Harrell, Domantas Sabonis, Deandre Ayton, DeMarcus Cousins, Michael Porter Jr., Rui Hachimura, Patrick Beverly, Harrison Barnes and Derrick Jones Jr.

Is this something that you’re interested in? I can tell you this won;t be something that I’ll be watching. I’m not a big fan of the NBA as it is; so watching players play a video game isn’t going to draw my attention. If you do watch this please let me know what you think of this event.

The National Hockey League Players Association surveyed nearly 600 players before the 2019-20 season was put on hold. Here are the results they ended up with.

Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins was selected the most complete player. Crosby had 47 points in in 41 games; 16 goals and 31 assists and his 30 points; 11 goals and 19 assists since January 14th are tied for 5th in the NHL.

Crosby received 45.56% of the votes beating out Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins who received 25.44 % of the vote. Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers (7.50%) and Ryan O’Reilly of the St. Louis Blues (5.33%) rounded out the four players receiving votes.

Crosby’s career track record which includes two Hart Trophy awards as NHL most valuable player (2007, 2014) and three Stanley Cup championships (2009, 2016, 2017) also made him the top choice as the player among any position you’d most want if you needed to win one game. Crosby received 44.03% of the votes in that category beating out Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers who received 30.53% of the vote.

McDavid did dominant the category for best forward. McDavid who is the Oilers captain scored 97 points; 34 goals and 63 assists during the season. McDavid picked up 68.35% of the vote in the best forward category. McDavid’s teammate Leon Draisaitl finished second in the voting. Draisaitl had 110 points; 43 goals and 67 assists during the season.

Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lighting was selected as the best defenseman for the second season in a row. Hedman received 37.88% of the vote beating John Carlson of the Washington Capitals who picked up 21.35% of the vote. Carlson is the front runner for the Norris trophy which is given to the best defenseman in the league, but he lost this vote to Hedman.

Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens became the repeat winner of the best goaltender award by beating out Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lighting. Price received  41.55% of the vote while Vasilevskiy got 17.09% of the vote.

Marie-Philip Poulin edged out Hilary Knight and was named best female hockey player. Poulin won with 39.92% of the vote while Knight ended up with 36.29% of the vote. Poulin was a forward on the two-time Olympic gold medal winning teams in 2010 and 2014. Poulin also scored the game winning goal in each of the championship games against the United States.

Do you agree with the way the players voted or would you have given these awards to other players? Please let me know who you would’ve voted for in the comment section.

Did either of these things that the NBA and NHL make you interested in them returning and finishing out the season. If you’d like to see either or both leagues return I’d be very interested in knowing how you think the leagues should finish out their season. Would you like to see the NHL and the NBA finish out their regular seasons or would you like to see them just go right into the playoffs?

While we went through what the NBA and the NHL have been up to recently I’d be curious to know how you’re passing the time without sports. Also I could use some tip to get through this time myself.

The Sports Time Radio podcast is still up and running. You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but if you miss the podcast live just head on over to TuneIn.com and you can listen whenever you’d like to.

Don’t forget to find me on Twitter @Burketime