Montreal Canadiens will be allowed to host games at the Bell Centre.
Montreal Canadiens games will be played at the Bell Centre to begin this season after all.
There has been months of heated debate going on behind the scenes among NHL owners, the NHL Player’s Association and government officials across North America. The 2020-21 season, which has become the 2021 season, was finally given the go-ahead late last week.
Teams were told they would begin a 56-game schedule on January 13, and the season would end with the Stanley Cup being handed out in early July.
The biggest question that lingered at that point was, what about the Canadian teams? It was already agreed that they would combine to form a seven-team Canadian division, but not all teams were given clearance to play games at their home buildings. It appeared the Quebec government was okay with Montreal playing at the Bell Centre, but nothing was official until minutes ago.
There was talk last week about a potential bubble situation again in Edmonton for Canadian teams. There were a few rumours spread about Canadian teams potentially needing to move to the United States for a while and there was some talk of hub cities to host games but not enforce the same bubble rules that were seen in the summer.
It turns out, none of those scenarios will play out, thankfully. Finally, the five separate provinces that host NHL teams in Canada all agreed that the teams could begin the season at their home arenas.
Statement from Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly on NHL Canadian Clubs Playing in Home Arenas. pic.twitter.com/mtCLTwlLcB
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) December 24, 2020
It sounds like none of them will be allowed to have fans in the building to start out, but the hope is that will change as the season goes on. With the second wave of Covid-19 hitting harder than the first in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta especially, there was no guarantee that these teams would be allowed to have games at all.
However, with a vaccine beginning to roll out across the country, the hope is those numbers will decrease and it will be safe to allow some fans into the building later in the season.
A packed Bell Centre may be far off in the distance, but this is a huge step forward for the NHL and the Montreal Canadiens as an organization for the upcoming season.