The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Puck Drops Here -- Or Does It? From The Stratford Festival To The NHL, Reopening Is Difficult.

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

Hockey Night in Podcastland -- a "bridge daily" special which shows just what a jock I am! Joined by my friends John Shannon and Gord Miller.

and hello there welcome to the beginning of week seven of the bridge daily during the covid 19 crisis good to talk to you good to know that you're pumped and ready for another week. For many of you, it's a week at home. It's a week of physical distancing. Yacht walk here or there. Nice day here in Stratford weather-wise. So a fair amount of physical distancing going on while taking a walk, getting your steps in, so that's all good. But it was a tough day in Stratford for another reason, because

the long-expected, long-awaited announcement from the world-famous Stratford Festival. I'm sure you've heard of the Stratford Festival. Famous for Shakespeare, famous for musicals. Famous for great theatre. Like theatres across this continent and around the world having to make tough decisions about this year's schedule given the situation with the virus. And the Stratford Festival announced today that for all intents and purposes their 2020 season

will not happen. There's an outside chance there may be some kind of special performance this fall, but for the most part they're saying it looks like we're moving on to 2021. Now, that's tough news, not just for the theater, but for the community. Stratford's not a big city, 32,000, 33,000. The festival is one of the mainstays. It brings enormous amounts of tourism into this community every summer. Hundreds of thousands of tourists come here every summer to go to the theater.

That was a concern for health authorities. A lot of those tourists come from the states if the borders open. But wherever they come from, they're coming into the city. So that was a concern. There was also a concern about whether people come anyway. A lot of tourists come here by bus. Do people really want to get on a bus, especially elderly people? Do they want to sit in a theater with 1,500, 1,800 other people.

So it was a tough call. But this community, like communities elsewhere in the country who have struggled as a result of what's going on, we'll band together and we'll make our way through this somehow. It's really tough for actors, theater actors, because theaters across the country, across the continent, around the world, are closing their doors.

So for actors, it's going to be a tough year. A lot of those actors have part-time jobs in restaurants. Not happening. Certainly not happening yet. That's the other half of today's news. It seemed wherever you turned, leaders, whether they were in the health field or the political field or the business field, were talking about reopening. When will that happen?

People are being extremely cautious for good reason, but they are talking about it, and they have plans, and various governments have different phases of plans. Well, phase one will open this, phase two will open that. If phase one and phase two go well and there's not a bounce back in the numbers then we'd move to phase three where this would happen. So some of them are being pretty clear about what their structure is, others not so yet. The Ontario government today announced that it has a reopening plan. It's based on phases, but they wouldn't go into what the phases are yet. The federal government's still being extremely cautious.

Most governments saying the decisions will be made by their public health officials. They will be guided by what public health officials say, which is more encouraging than what we're hearing from some states south of the border, where decisions seem to be being made by politicians and not by health officials. That's worrying, and that's concerning. But at the root of it all are decisions that are critical to the well-being of our cities and towns and provinces and country in the future. Because to try and get the economy going, you've got to get business going. Things have to start happening at some point. So that's the critical nature of all this.

Because the economic numbers are incredibly bleak. Deficit is going to be huge beyond anyone's imagination. The unemployment rate is going to be huge beyond anyone's imagination. And the list will go on. So these are all difficult calls. Now, I warned you last week that one of the issues that I wanted to explore, warn is not the right word, because I'm sure some of you, I can't be the only one who's interested in this.

You know, I'm a sports fan. I'm a news fan. I'm a news fan. I love politics. I love sports, too. I'm a season ticket holder in hockey. The Leafs. Season ticket holder in basketball. The Raptors.

I can't imagine yet going to another game, but I want to watch games. I really want to watch games. I really miss games. I told you, I sat and watched the NFL draft the other night because I thought somehow it might be exciting. Well, it wasn't that exciting, but it was something I sat and watched. Loving the MJ, the Michael Jordan ESPN docs. Amazing.

Incredible. So there is this, you know, anxiousness on the part of some people on this story about hockey. When's it going to start? The NHL. When's it going to start? The NHL. When will it start up? Will they finish the 2019-20 season?

Will Austin Matthews break 50 goals? Who will win the Stanley Cup? Will there be a Stanley Cup? When will next year's season start? These are all questions, good ones. And I wanted to explore them a little bit today. So I hope you'll stick with me for it because I have two good friends of mine,

two smart guys on the hockey beat. And I talked to them individually today to get their take on where we're at. And while there's some crossover here, there's not a lot. They talk about different issues that are confronting the NHL and players and fans as we look at the possibility of restarting the 2019-20 season and moving into playoffs and how that will be done, where it will be done, will there be fans,

what's really at stake? Is it really all about money? So I've got a couple of conversations here. They're not long, but they're, to me, fascinating. So stick with me. First up, my friend John Shannon, who was a former executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada. And that's where I first met John.

I'd see him in the hallways at the CBC. He'd be pumping his show. I'd be saying, hey, when are we ever going to get the news on? But he knew I loved hockey and he knew I loved sports and he still does. And we still talk every once in a while. We did a show together last year in Edmonton for the Oilers. When they were voted the 1984-85 Edmonton Oilers team, you know, Gretzky, Curry, and Messier, and Coffey,

and all the greats from those years that the Oilers won everything. And that particular team was voted the best team ever in the history of the NHL by a sort of continent-wide vote. And so we, John and I and Dave Hodge, were out in Edmonton to help host a big gala night. It was packed. The Rogers Centre there in Edmonton was packed. And it was a great evening. Wonderful evening.

Anyway, John and I have remained friends over the years. He's worked for Rogers. He's still doing, you know, radio interviews on the situation in hockey these days. So he's, you know, he's a busy guy. But he wasn't too busy today because he made time for me. So here, first of all, then, is my conversation with John Shannon. So, John, it's one thing to want hockey to come back. It's another thing to actually make that happen.

So you talk to a lot of people at a lot of different levels within the NHL. What is your sense of where we are right now? Well, I think, Peter, you and I know as much as the people in the positions of power. And that is they're going to wait until the public health officials, the governments at all levels decided safe. And the one thing that comes through it all is that there really is a desire to get back as quickly as possible and as safely as possible. And the motivation on wanting to get back, I assume, is it's a business. And we're talking money here. Oh, absolutely.

When you think about the NHL season ending 189 games before it was supposed to finish, and the Stanley Cup playoffs being not completed, we're probably talking $1.2, $1.3 billion of revenue that the NHL and the players have given up. And you combine that at the same time with a real demand, in my opinion, by some key partners, and I put the networks at the top of the list,

who were planning to cover lots of different sports, particularly the Olympics this summer, and there's a need for program content. And so everybody gets some level of satisfaction and some mitigated losses if the NHL can get back in play by November and finish this season and finish the Stanley Cup playoffs before they start next season and they don't want to compromise next season at all. Let me just check that on the date.

So when you say November, you're talking about wrapping up this year's lost season in november or starting no i think i no i i think that uh i i think if and it's a giant if if there is hockey to be played it will start in august and the playoffs would continue through september and part of october and we would start a new season, in my opinion, in November. And November through, including the playoffs, would go all the way through to next June. Do you see any of that, at least the initial portion of it all, in front of a live audience, or is this just TV?

Well, I think that's the million-dollar question. I think what they're trying to do is prepare to do it in front of no fans and make it strictly a TV commodity. I think they'd love to do it in front of fans, even if it's 4,000 or 5,000 fans, because I don't think you'll fill a building in August. But I think that the preparation is such that it would start at least in front of no fans

at all. Now, when you were running the numbers there, talking about dollars, those are big numbers. Those are big numbers. Those are big bucks. And one assumes that the longer this takes, the more in jeopardy, if not the league, certainly some of the teams may be in. Would that be a fair assessment? I don't think that's as drastic as it sounds, one of the things that has happened in the last, gosh, 10 to 12 years is that Gary Bettman has done a really good job

in creating financial security for the league. And included in that is that he has access to a line of credit that if a team does in fact get in trouble, he can find the money at a low interest rate in order to get them through the tough times.

The level of stability in the NHL right now, at 31, soon to be 32 teams, I don't think has been... I think this is the strongest it's been in our lifetime, Peter. And let's face it, we go back a long way. I mean, I think the league's as solid as it was since the 16 league in 1967. And part of that is access to money and the fact that hockey has created a great deal of stability

even in some of the tougher markets. Where do you see issues popping up here that we may not be considering? Where are the problem areas given what we're going through here? Well, you know, I think from a pure hockey perspective, I think the issues become is that we seem to get really focused on will the games be played, but, you know, you still have support staff. You still have travel.

You still have logistical issues. Gary calls them back-of-house issues. I'm still not sure all the back-of-house issues can be addressed in the NHL arenas during the pandemic in order to try to get even close to finding a way to play games. I love hockey. I'd love to see hockey. But I wonder, I truly wonder,

is it not smarter to wave the white flag on the 19-20 season and get prepared somehow, some way for next season? And isn't that, in some way, and I know the money's a huge issue, but in some way, isn't that probably better for the business and better for the hockey fan? And in the end, if the paying public's so important,

that to me is key in all of it. Do you think there's a debate within the NHL, within the top tier of management, the Board of Governors, et cetera, on that issue, and the NHLPA and the players? No, I don't. I think all of those people are on the same side. They need to find a way to mitigate the $1.2 billion loss. And remember, this is not just a pure owner-player business anymore.

This is a partnership. Some of that money is squarely on the shoulders of the players. And they're going to have to take their level of the losses as well. When you call a business revenue sharing, then revenue sharing it is. And the players are in it as much as the owners are. Well, let me ask you to put your forecasting hat on. What's your best bet at this point, end of April? What's going to happen?

Well, when you speak about timing, it's hard to believe that it has not been two months yet and we're expecting at least two more months of this. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer, we are seeing downward trends in a lot of places and a lot of markets with COVID-19. I think we all have our toes and fingers crossed that things are improving to some point. I do think that there will be hockey in August. I do think whether it's in individual cities, in hub cities, or perhaps in a group of cities that is more than four,

that we see some semblance of the regular season finishing and the Stanley Cup playoffs of 2020 being completed probably before Canadian Thanksgiving. Well, let's leave it at that, and we will see, obviously, what will happen over the next weeks and months. John, it's been a treat, as always, to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Great to talk to you, Peter. So there you go, John Shannon, his take on what we're looking at in hockey. So moving right along, another old friend of mine used to work for the CBC in the early 80s. Most people have forgotten that because he's worked for TSN since kind of the middle 80s ever since. Gord Miller, one of the best play-by-play hockey announcers in the world. He works for TSN. He also works for NBC doing hockey.

So Gord and I go back to those early 80s days, but we've stayed in touch and we chat every once in a while, have breakfast every once in a while, talk about what we're hearing, and I go to Gord as well to get his take on the hockey situation. And here's what he had to say in our conversation today. So, Gord, what are you hearing? Well, obviously I'm hearing a lot of things.

I mean, everything from playing on college campuses for the NHL to baseball games being played in Florida and Arizona. But from a hockey perspective, which is where my primary interest lies, what I'm hearing is that the NHL is anxious to finish the regular season and have the playoffs. And that would probably look like what we've heard in the past, picking four centers to hold games, so one for each division, bring all the teams to that center, play games one or two a day to get to 82 regular season games, and then begin the playoffs.

Now, that's what you're hearing? Do you think that's fairly well down the road here at this point? Well, we know that, you know, Frank Cervelli from TSN has reported about the, you know, the possibility of four cities. There's also, he's also talking about the potential for college campuses. The appeal of the college campuses was that, of course, they're empty. There's no one there. But I think it's more likely they would use NHL arenas. I don't think we'd see spectators, at least not initially. I mean, for example, Calgary's already canceled the Stampede.

The public health officials at Edmonton have said that no large gatherings until the end of June. So I would suspect these would be NHL games played with no spectators, at least initially. And this is very difficult for the NHL as opposed to other leagues, Peter, because the NBA, for example, gets about $3 billion a year in network TV money, plus the money that teams get from their local broadcasters for regional games.

The NHL teams get about a third of that national TV money. So they're much more gate-dependent, but there's other factors at play. They don't want to refund money to their sponsors or to the television networks. So they're anxious to get these games in no matter what. So in this situation, the one you just outlined, it would be money from TV revenues and that's it? Yeah, basically.

You wouldn't be selling tickets. I'm assuming they'd have to work something out with the sponsors who buy ring-forward ads and on-ice ads because while they're still reaching a TV audience, they obviously aren't reaching people in person. But, yeah, I think that's what you're looking at. It's hard to imagine, Peter, at this point, large gatherings of people at sporting events. I mean, the great thing about sports is it brings us together.

That's also the problem. When are we prepared to have 15,000, 20,000 people in an arena, 50,000, 70,000 people in a football stadium? When are we prepared to do that? That seems to me further down the road. I'm not a public health expert, but that just seems from a practical point of view to be further down the road. Okay. Well, when you look at the, the plan that you're outlining, it would seem to me, and I don't want to sound, uh, you know, unfair about this, but it would seem to me, it's all about the money. It's not about, you know, engraving names on a cup. It's about trying to recoup

something out of this season, or there's going to be a huge hit for the NHL if they're not able to do that. Well, an even bigger hit than they've already taken. Yeah, I mean, I think they don't, I mean, they'd like to get the season in no matter what. Now, there's obviously precedence for that not happening. The NHL didn't award the Stanley Cup in 2005 because of the lockout. Major League Baseball had a season canceled due to a strike. So there is recent precedent for it. There's larger issues at play here, Peter. I mean, there's not just the fact they don't want to refund money to television partners,

but also, you know, a lot of people thought there'd be a work stoppage this fall. The players had the option to reopen the CBA in September. They chose not to. But to couch against that, to guard against that, a lot of the players had their contract structured so they get massive signing bonuses this year to guarantee their salary. There's something like $450 million in signing bonus due to players on July the 1st, which is due from teams that haven't had revenue since mid-March. So yeah, there's obviously huge

financial implications for these teams to get playing in some semblance. Now, it seems to me, or at least from the different things we've heard, is that everybody's kind of together on trying to work out some kind of an agreement, whether it's the owners, the NHL Board of Governors, the players, I assume the officials. Everybody must be involved in these kind of discussions, right? Absolutely. And there's all kinds of considerations that have to happen from players. Say they play in July and August. What about players whose contracts expire on July the 1st? So Alex Petrangelo, who plays for the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues, is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent July 1st. Does the free agency day slide? What if a player got hurt playing between July and August? What happens then? I mean, there's all kinds of uncharted territory here, Peter.

We really have never experienced anything like this. So there's all kinds of considerations that have to happen here. And I think they're going to have to, obviously, they're going to have to work with the Players Association, the individual teams, the officials, as you mentioned, their broadcast partners. All of this has to be figured out.

How are the games going to be broadcast? My guess would be you would have one television crew produce the game. So one set of camera, audio people, replay people, and they'll provide a pool feed, much like at the Olympics, to various broadcasters. What are you hearing from the players? Have you talked to some players over this last month or so? What are they saying? Yeah, I've talked to a lot of players, Peter.

I mean, they're like everyone else. They're kind of in the dark here. They don't know. I mean, they want to play, obviously. I mean, they really want to play. I mean, the thing about it is, if you're a hockey player or any professional athlete, really, your window to win is very small. I mean, think about the Tampa Bay Lightning,

a very good team, you know, playing really well before the stoppage happened. You know, as of next season, they're going to have to offload a bunch of players because they've got salary cap issues. And who knows what the salary cap looks like next year. But for Tampa, for those guys, this might be their best chance to win the Cup.

And that's true of a bunch of teams. And so I think the players are anxious to play, but like everyone else, they're saying, where are we playing? How are we playing? What's it going to look like? Is the regular season going to finish? All of those questions have to be answered, and they're, like everyone else, looking for answers. Anyone who says they know for sure what's going to happen,

how could you? How could you possibly? Because one assumes that at the end of the day, no matter how far along they may be in a new plan here, that it's health reasons that will be the deciding factor. Right. I mean, public health officials are going to have the final, and local authorities, are going to have the final decision on this. And so I'm assuming the NHL will work closely with them to try to figure this out. But, yeah, I mean, you know, Bill Daley, the NHL's deputy commissioner, said the other day that if they do resume playing,

a couple of players tested positive for coronavirus, that wouldn't necessarily mean they'd stop playing. All right. Well, you know, it's going to be one way or the other. It's going to be an interesting next few months and quite possibly a very interesting summer on this front. Gord, thanks very much for your time. My pleasure. And there you go. Gord Miller, John Shannon.

With their thoughts on what is a big business, hockey. It's not just all about goals and assists and penalty minutes. It's about big business. It's about that struggle that that big business is having, trying to make a determination about when or even if it goes back to work this year. So we'll watch that unfold as this story continues to unfold. And as this week continues to unfold, and we've got more special guests coming up in the days ahead, and more topics to discuss as well.

So this has been, in a way, a kind of special edition of the Bridge Daily as we focus on something we haven't even talked about in the seven weeks so far, and that was sports. I hope you enjoyed the discussion. So that's the Bridge Daily for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. And you know what?

We'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.