Kansas City’s quest for pro team’s temporary home unlikely to include NHL. Here’s why
Last week, the idea of having the NBA’s Toronto Raptors play home their games in Kansas City set off the daydreamers.
The city got involved with a letter to the NBA, office signed by Mayor Quinton Lucas and Missouri and Kansas politicos, throwing KC’s hat into the ring. Kansas City, the letter made clear, is a willing and able outpost if the Raptors run into travel restrictions akin to those encountered by baseball’s Blue Jays and three Canandian-based MLS teams.
But how about the National Hockey League? With seven teams spread across the nation and 24 more based in the U.S., could the NHL look at border-crossing options that include KC, assuming Canada’s travel restrictions remain in place?
Unlikely, even with a terrific venue available in the T-Mobile Center, and here’s why: The seven Canadian teams could form their own division and thus avoid the need to leave the country during the regular season.
Here’s what NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told ESPN last week:
“The border situation continues to present challenges, there’s no doubt about that,” Daly said. “We are in touch with the people we need to be in touch with. So we’re up to speed on what’s going on currently and what might be going on in the future. And, you know, that’s the most that I can say about it. Obviously, it factors into how we have to plan for the 2020-21 season. And it will factor in. If it remains exceedingly difficult to travel teams to and from Canada, as I think we’ve been very clear, one possibility is to create competition within the league among the Canadian clubs.”
That division would include Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver, and adjustments would have to be made with the U.S.-based teams for divisions.
The NHL season probably won’t start before Jan. 1, and it figures to be played with a shortened schedule.
One that in all likelihood won’t include games in Kansas City.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 10:30 AM.