Blackhawks share mixed reactions to NHL’s July 10 training camp start date - Chicago Sun-Times

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On the surface, the NHL locomotive continues to chug slowly back toward normalcy.

That train reached a new station Thursday: the announcement of a tentative date, July 10, for the 24 playoff-bound teams to start training camps.

And in Chicago, the Blackhawks became the final team to move out of their pandemic media lockdown, making general manager Stan Bowman, coach Jeremy Colliton and three players (Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat and Connor Murphy) available for interviews Thursday for the first time in three months.

But despite the aura of progress and optimism swelling around the league overall, those players — Kane in particular — shared mixed reactions to the July 10 date announcement.

“The NHL is putting out these dates and whatnot, and as players, we’re taking a step back and saying, ‘Why are these dates being put out when we haven’t really agreed to anything yet?’” Kane said. “We just want to be cautious.”

To clarify, both league officials and the NHL Players’ Association did agree on the July 10 date. But Thursday’s announcement included the caveat that camps will begin that day only if “medical and safety conditions allow and the parties have reached an overall agreement on resuming play.”

It’s that overall agreement that still poses a number of obstacles. Kane mentioned the format of this autumn’s offseason (and offseasons to come), the start date of the 2020-21 season and the safety precautions and quarantine rules during the upcoming playoffs as especially pressing challenges.

“I want to play hockey, but you want it to be fair for the players and everyone involved,” Kane said on Zoom from his Chicago home. “It’s uncharted territory with a situation like this — guys come from Canada, Europe; what if someone gets sick? [We] just want to keep our eye on the ball and make sure we get a fair deal. Then we’d be ecstatic to come back.”

The travel logistics question is one that is already at the forefront.

With practice facilities around the league opening up for up-to-six-person training sessions this week — the Hawks opened Fifth-Third Arena on Wednesday, and Kane, DeBrincat, Alex Nylander and Malcolm Subban were among those who immediately took advantage — many players are starting to migrate back to their club’s cities.

Connor Murphy was among the Blackhawks who joined a Zoom call with media Thursday.

Ben Pope/Sun-Times

Bowman said “five to seven” Hawks stayed in Chicago throughout the pandemic, and he’s starting to talk to the roughly 15 others to plan out their returns.

Fortunately, though, the NHL and NHLPA’s negotiations aren’t struggling much with the salary issues that have so publicly and messily plagued the MLB’s resumption movement.

And equally encouragingly, both Bowman and Kane said they haven’t talked to any players — on the Hawks or elsewhere — who aren’t on board with returning to play when safe.

DeBrincat and Murphy, at least speaking for themselves, both sounded genuinely excited for July 10.

“We’re still agreeing on some stuff, but if we do get that chance to come back, everyone’s excited to play hockey again,” DeBrincat said. “To finally to get back on the ice these past few days has been really fun for me.”

“Even from just a training aspect, to know your timeline of how to ramp up things and how to gauge your training sessions with the strength coach or even on the ice, it’s nice to know,” Murphy added.

The league’s official timeline doesn’t yet extend past that mid-summer date, but it’s expected that training camps would last about three weeks, with qualifying round series — including the Hawks-Oilers matchup — taking place in early August.

Kane, DeBrincat and Murphy said they plan to approach camp, assuming it happens, roughly the same as they do normal ones in September.

And now their coach can formulate a plan for it, too.

“It’s something to really work toward: a hard date,” Colliton said. “You can start to work backwards as far as the preparation we’ll want to do.”

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