The second phase of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) return plan identified a total of 43 cases of Covid-19 infection, the NHL reports.
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The league has tested 600 players in the second phase, taking 4,934 Covid-19 tests, 30 of which have been positive. Outside the second phase protocol, another 13 cases of infection were detected in hockey players who had not joined the teams in individual training at that time.
The second phase of the NHL plan, which envisages a return to the pitches and the end of the 2019/2020 season, ended on Sunday. In the second phase, classes with no more than six players took place in the team gyms. The third phase began on Monday when the units began their training camps.
The NHL board and the league’s players’ union (NHLPA) signed an agreement on Friday that paved the way for the resumption of the season affected by the coronavirus pandemic on August 1. Training camps were opened on Monday, followed by a 24-team tournament in two Canadian cities, Edmonton and Toronto.
The teams will travel to Edmonton and Toronto on July 26, where the qualifying round for the Stanley Cup playoffs will begin on August 1.
Club owners and players have already agreed on a format for 24 team elimination games. It provides for a series of up to three wins in the “play-off” qualifying round, followed by a switch to the traditional series format for up to four wins.
The league and the players’ union also agreed that the playoffs would not take place in the traditional grid, when each team knows with which pair the winner will play the next round, and the teams will be re-seeded after each round.
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