The Flames and Canucks are doing it. They’re playing all the games that they have to make up from when the Canucks had a coronavirus outbreak. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are underway and these guys are still out here finishing up regular season hockey games that matter for nothing more than draft order, as far as I can tell. It is the funniest thing that has ever happened on ice and yes I am aware of the Ice Age franchise.
Astute Twitter user canesfan2037 raised an interesting point about this yesterday morning. This being the series. Not Ice Age. canesfan2037 pointed out something big:
The NHL may well be trying to imitate the NIT.
It’s not the worst way to do it. The problems, of course, are that neither of these teams is as good in the landscape of the NHL as NIT teams are in the landscape of college basketball, that this is rather meaningless whereas the NIT is the most meaningful thing in the universe, and that this is not being played somewhere as glamorous as New York City or Frisco, Texas (no hate to Vancouver and Calgary it’s just hard to top Sports City USA). But you can’t fault the NHL for trying here. Life gave them lemons. They tried to make an NIT out of them. We will never criticize those who dream big and try to use those dreams for good.
As an added bonus, our beloved Ottawa Senators are indirectly involved, hoping for either Vancouver to pass them (if we care about draft order) or for Vancouver to stay behind them (if we want our guys to not finish in last place).
What a buzz.
