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Wake With Elias: Vegas reportedly named a hub city, so what about Vancouver?

Dr. Bonnie Henry recently approved Vancouver’s hub city bid.

By Beggsy
New Jersey Devils v Vegas Golden Knights
Members of the Knights Guard clean the ice during the Vegas Golden Knights’ game against the New Jersey Devils at T-Mobile Arena on March 3, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Golden Knights defeated the Devils 3-0.
Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Canucks & NHL News

  • Before we get to the NHL news of the day, the big story out of Vancouver yesterday was that Dr. Bonnie Henry has approved the Canucks hub city bid, in large part due to the revised quarantine plan which allows families to join players. [The Province]

That news might have meant for if it wasn’t for this other piece of information reported on Wednesday night...

  • According to Vancouver sports journalist Rob Fai, the NHL has officially approved Las Vegas as one of the NHL’s hub cities.

If that’s the case, it might eliminate Vancouver’s bid to be a hub city. However, most of the teams to put in bids were Western Conference teams (Edmonton, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, St. Paul, Vancouver and Las Vegas) whereas only Toronto, Pittsburgh have put in official bids at this time.

Here’s another snippet from The Province’s Ben Kuzma from above, talking about the COVID-19 situation in Vegas right now.

Meanwhile, thousands of tourists have been crowding 23 casinos during the recent reopening of the Las Vegas economy. And because those casinos are located in proximity to T-Mobile Arena — home of the Golden Knights — they can pose a COVID-19 transmission threat. Few patrons are wearing masks and dealers aren’t donning gloves. And they’re all walking the famous downtown strip with a risk of virus transmission.

Then again, Nevada can point to being only 38th in the number of confirmed cases in the country — 8,935 compared to Ohio, which has the 15th most with 38,883 cases — but the state is trending in wrong direction.

On Tuesday, Nevada health officials revealed 244 new cases, an above-average daily increase. It was the largest increase since May 22 and among the largest in Nevada during the pandemic. Some of the increase is justified by more testing, but the reality is thousands of tourists are not abiding by COVID-19 physical distancing measures and could be spreading or contracting the virus.

That has to get the NHL’s attention.

“How many rinks are in Vegas?” asked Horgan. “How do you bring 12 teams to Vegas in August? It’s not really desirable for a family. Here, there’s just so much to offer and we have so much access to ice.”

  • It’s official. NHL training camps will begin on July 10th [NHL]
  • Our own Nick Bondi has TSN’s Andy Cole on The Power of the Pure-L podcast this week. [Nucks Misconduct]
  • And finally, happy birthday to this Canucks legend.

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