NHL announces players can start working out at league facilities on Monday

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The NHL will finally be swinging their doors open next week.

After a nearly three-month pause to the 2019-20 NHL season due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the NHL announced on Thursday night that the league's practice facilities will be allowed to open for small groups of players to practice, and work out off the ice, starting on Monday. It doesn’t necessarily mean every NHL team will begin practicing in groups of up to six players starting on June 8, but that should begin a month-long progression toward NHL training camps starting sometime around the July 10 date.

Here’s the statement from the NHL:

Subject to each Club’s satisfaction of all of the requirements set out in the Phase 2 Protocol – Clubs will be permitted to reopen their training facilities in their home city to allow players to participate in individualized training activities (off-ice and on-ice). Players will be participating on a voluntary basis and will be scheduled to small groups (i.e., a maximum of six Players at any one time, plus a limited number of Club staff). The various measures set out in the Phase 2 Protocol are intended to provide players with a safe and controlled environment in which to resume their conditioning. Phase 2 is not a substitute for training camp. All necessary preparations for Phase 2, including those that require Player participation (education, diagnostic testing, scheduling for medicals, etc.), can begin immediately. The NHL and the NHLPA continue to negotiate over an agreement on the resumption of play.

It's not yet clear if the Bruins already in the area are going to start skating at Warrior Ice Arena on Monday, but they have already been given the go-ahead by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the Celtics have started voluntary workouts across the street.

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The league still needs to come to an agreement with the NHLPA on many aspects of the return to play plan that go beyond the 24-team format, and today’s news that advancing teams will be re-seeding after each round and each of the four playoff rounds will be seven-game series following the short qualifying play-in round.

When comparing things to the NBA, who already has dates to resume the season, for their draft and a location for everything to take place, the National Hockey League still has plenty of substantive work to do before hockey is truly back.

There’s no doubt that momentum continues to build for the NHL to resume in the next couple of months with hopes that an eventual Stanley Cup champion will be named sometime in October.

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