It was rumoured and hinted at by insiders all last week, but it’s going to be official soon.
The NHL has decided to ditch the 2 week increments of schedule canceling and will do away with all of November’s scheduled NHL games today.
I’m stressing that the NHL is canceling the schedule and not canceling the actual games, because this is what’s happening in reality. If things on the CBA front were to change rapidly and a CBA is agreed to in the next couple days, there would be games played in November, no doubt about that. They just wouldn’t be the games that were scheduled to be played in November.
One thing is likely certain after today, and that is that an 82 game NHL season is off the table. Too much time will have elapsed before a CBA is agreed to for the NHL to fit that many games in and not sacrifice player health along with other revenue streams.
One thing that’s been hinted at is that the Winter Classic is next on the docket of possible canceled games. Some have said this decision could come down as soon as Monday, along with the cancellation of the All Star game. Canceling the All Star game makes sense if the NHL wants to cram more games together in a short period, but canceling the Winter Classic at this point seems foolish and slightly petulant.
Update: Official Press Release
NEW YORK – The National Hockey League announced today the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through November 30 because of the absence of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL.
A total of 326 regular-season games – 26.5 percent of the season — were scheduled for Oct. 11 through Nov. 30.
