Alberta government continuing to build guidelines on NHL hub city bid

EDMONTON (660 NEWS) — Guidelines are being developed by health officials in Alberta to allow for Edmonton to be a potential hub city for the NHL.

On Tuesday, the league announced its plan to resume the season with Edmonton among several cities as potential hosts for the 24-team postseason.

Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw says the guidelines put together involve multiple teams to live together.

“What we’ve put together is an opportunity for a cohort quarantine. Which would mean a group that came in from international travel, such as an individual team, would have to stay together in that quarantine period and would not be able to interact with others outside of that cohort group,” Hinshaw said.

The size of that cohort, whether that be one or two teams, they would be sealed off from the rest of the community, Hinshaw added

Although as much of a benefit it would be to be selected as a hub city, she said they still need to ensure the safety of Albertans.

“The guidelines that we have put in place that we feel would adequately address the safety of Albertans, as well as being considerate of the opportunity for sporting events which we know Albertans enjoy to take place, that we think balances both of those interests,” Hinshaw added.

Hinshaw added that safety must be a top priority for this to work and there needs to be a collaboration between all parties involved.

Premier Jason Kenney also wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking the federal government to have guidelines that would closely mirror the United States to hold NHL games.

“Alberta is eager to work with the Government of Canada to facilitate the NHL playoffs taking place in Edmonton,” Kenney wrote.

“The Government of Alberta believes there are effective strategies in place to mitigate any risk for our province if such an exemption was granted.”

In one of Trudeau’s COVID-19 addresses a couple of weeks ago, he stated anyone entering the country “will have to follow all the rules of quarantine in an extremely strict manner,” and did not have any discussions with the NHL at the time.

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On Tuesday, the league announced their plan to resume the season under a 24-team playoff format in two hub cities where Edmonton was one of the Canadian cities — including Vancouver and Toronto — as one of the finalists.