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In pro sports, it’s never too late

4 min read

The NHL seems determined to have a Stanley Cup champion in 2020.

Commissioner Gary Bettman announced last week the league terminated the regular season at the point where the coronavirus pandemic interrupted the schedule and made plans to conduct a 24-team playoff tournament that will start sometime in July.

Two host cities will be used for games. One of those cities being considered is Las Vegas.

Hockey in July.

In Las Vegas.

Without fans.

Nothing makes one think of playoff hockey like a 100-degree July day in Las Vegas. It should make for some interesting ice conditions.

Speculation has it that the NBA, which is apparently trying to keep up with the NHL, will approve a 22-team playoff to determine its champion. According to one report, the league could be targeting July 31 as its return date. That would be a resumption of play following a four-month layoff.

That should make for some ragged play in the early rounds of the playoffs.

Baseball owners seem too preoccupied these days figuring out how to eliminate half of their minor league teams to come up with a solid plan for a shortened major league season. The players association recently floated a 114-game proposal that would extend the regular season to the end of October. Under this plan, an expanded playoff would conclude sometime in late November.

It’s not clear in the players’ proposal if fans would be permitted in the ballparks or where the games would be played. But if games are being played in northern cities in November, then forget about dragging the infield between innings. You’ll need to take a snow plow to them between innings.

All of this makes you wonder if professional sports should have an expiration date on these seasons?

Hockey in July. Baseball at Thanksgiving. What’s next? Football in the spring? Oh, wait, that’s been tried several times and failed.

What you need to realize is the return of hockey and basketball are about one thing: money. It’s a money grab. Television money.

It’s not about the fans in the arenas or ballparks or stadiums. You don’t matter. You never did. It’s only the fans who tune in on television who matter.

Baseball is a sport where fans in the stands do matter, from a financial standpoint, which is why the owners and players can’t come up with a workable plan to start the season. Owners need the ticket money to help cover some of the player salaries. In March, MLB and the union reached an agreement for players to get a prorated share of their salaries if a shortened season is played. The owners say they will lose $640,000 per game played in an empty ballpark, if player salaries are prorated.

It seems unlikely a baseball season will be played this year. However, if all goes as planned, the NHL and NBA will determine champions around the time the NFL season kicks off, proving in sports that it’s never too late to make a comeback.

  • Former Steelers wide receiver Dave Smith, who played three seasons (1970-72) with Pittsburgh and one more in the NFL, died May 22. He was 73.

Smith will be remembered in Steelers lore for a Monday Night Football game at Kansas City in 1971, when he caught a Terry Bradshaw pass and was off all alone for an apparent touchdown. Smith, however, raised the football above his head in celebration before reaching the end zone. The ball slipped out of his hand at the five-yard line and rolled out the back of the end zone for an embarrassing touchback. The Steelers lost the game, 38-16.

Smith was the first player ever drafted into the NFL out of Indiana (Pa.), but he spent two years at Waynesburg before transferring to IUP. He was a defensive back on Waynesburg’s 1966 NAIA championship team.

Sports editor Chris Dugan can be reached at dugan@observer-reporter.com.

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