NHL officially announces January 13th start date and division realignment, training camps to open January 3rd

Hockey is (almost) back!

After a long offseason where whispers, rumours and rumblings dominated headlines, we finally have some official word from the league about the 2020-2021 season.

The NHL Board of Governers had a conference call this morning at 9 AM Pacific Time. Shortly after the call, the league and players association officially announced the plans for division realignment, training camps, and their January 13th start date was made official.

Training camps will start on January 3rd, but teams who didn’t qualify for the summer return to play will be permitted to open their camps as early as December 31st. Remember, teams like the Ottawa Senators and San Jose Sharks haven’t played games since March, so will need all the help they can get in getting their legs back under them and back into game shape.

The league also announced some news that is making Canadian hockey fans everywhere giddy with excitement: the North Division.

Teams in the other three divisions will play each divisional opponent eight times, but teams in the North Division will face each other nine or ten times, as per the league’s statement.

That means at least nine games against Jacob Markstrom and Chris Tanev. At least nine games where Elias Pettersson will go head-to-head against the stars of the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs who get the most national media attention of anybody in the league.

The top four teams from each division will qualify for the playoffs, meaning the Canucks have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs once again this year. It won’t be easy by any means, but it will surely be fun to watch the whole way through.

A looming question, however, is if the Canucks will be playing home games at Rogers Arena. The Provincial health authority has yet to sign off on this, and BC is not the only province to have this issue, either.

That being said, all signs indicate that training camps will follow the same guidelines that were in place during training camp 2.0 back in July. That means on-ice sessions at Rogers Arena almost every day for a complete ten days, and CanucksArmy will have you covered every step of the way.

This will certainly be an interesting training camp, as there are jobs up for grabs to be won solely in training camp, since there are no preseason games.