League, owners, and players agree on 'Hub' locations

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by tonychizzle

by tonychizzle

After weeks of negotiations, meetings, conference calls, and cancelled press conferences, we finally know which cities were selected to be the 6 hub cities for the start of the upcoming 2020-21 season. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the higher numbers of active cases in the U.S., the decision was made to have the hubs in Canada.

Toronto and Edmonton were ruled out because of the arenas in question being used for the NHL playoffs. The 6 remaining Canadian teams have been selected to host 5 teams each in a revolving rotation of 2 games a day with the 5th team having the night off, and a rest day for all teams every 4 days. The schedule for September and October has been released. In Mid-October the league will reset and adjust the teams in each hub city to change opponents for the next two months.

As the state of the pandemic changes, the league we reevaluate whether fans will be allowed in the arenas or whether travel to all arenas will be allowed, but as it stands now, for the first block of games there will be no fans in attendance.

The regular season is set to begin on September 5th.

Here's are the hub cities and the teams that will be playing in each location:

Western Conference
Vancouver Hub at Rogers Arena
- Vancouver Millionairs
- Calgary Reds
- Edmonton Battalion
- Seattle Kings
- Portland Pilots

Calgary Hub at Scotiabank Saddledome
- America Mexico City
- Mexico City Pumas
- San Diego Stars
- Tigres Monterey
- Chivas Guadalajara

Winnipeg Hub at BellMTS Centre
- Denver Jets
- Las Vegas Nigh Hawks
- Phoenix Firebirds
- Los Angeles Magic
- San Francisco Mariners

Eastern Conference
Montreal Hub at Centre Bell
- Chicago Comets
- Dallas Derricks
- Detroit Mustangs
- Philadelphia Pandas
- Winnipeg Monarchs

Ottawa Hub at Canadian Tire Centre
- Buffalo Bandits
- Montreal Voyageurs
- Ottawa Rebels
- Quebec City Titans
- Toronto Shamrocks

Quebec City Hub at Centre Videotron
- Boston Crabs
- Brooklyn Lions
- Miami Tropics
- New York Generals
- Washington Senators

All players and personnel will report to the hub locations, through special permission granted by the Canadian and individual provincial Governments on August 5th and will quarantine for 2 weeks, after which training camps will begin on August 20th. The last day for roster cuts will be September 2nd. There will be no preseason game, though the league has allowed teams within the hubs to choose if they want to have combined practices and scrimmages at their own discretion.

To date the league has only reported 5 total cases of COVID 19, and only 2 were players. They have all recovered. The league has mandated daily testing until the 20th. Then testing will occur every four days. There are strict rules that no player or personnel are allowed to leave their respective bubbles and any interaction with anyone outside their team cohorts is to be done with a mask. The league has release a 20 page document outlining all of the guidelines, protocols, and procedures for keeping all the players, staff, media, etc safe in the arenas, training facilities, and hotels.

For the conclusion of the 2020 Queens Cup playoffs that were hosted exclusively in Washington DC, the league had zero cases of COVID-19 for the entire 3 weeks of competition, and are confident in their ability to keep the spread of the virus from entering the hubs.