Steve Metcalf had a fast start to his career as Hockey East commissioner.
The longtime University of New Hampshire administrator was named the fifth commissioner in conference history on Feb. 17. Less than a month later he was canceling the Hockey East Tournament before it began due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
By late July his office announced its intent to play a 2020-2021 season, and on Wednesday it released a schedule.
“Today it’s back to the work of making it happen,” Metcalf said in a virtual press conference. “We’re nine days away from playing some college hockey and Hockey East. We’re thrilled about that.”
After working closely with former Commissioner Joe Bertagna during a transition period, Metcalf and his staff started work on the next season. Hockey East worked with school athletic directors and health officials to determine the best way to proceed.
“The two main subject items for discussion of the last couple months — how we would return to play safely and then how to build a schedule that fits within those guidelines,” he said. “We’re delighted we got to this point.”
Getting to this point was challenging and navigating the waters ahead will be equally as difficult.
Hockey East teams will only compete within the conference. While teams will play between 26 and 28 games, only 20 will count toward conference standings. The format will be a double round robin where teams play home-and-away series. Most teams will travel on game day, with the exception of games at Vermont and Maine. Vermont and Maine will host two games each weekend, or have two road games each weekend.
Seventh-ranked UMass opens its season with a pair of games at Maine (Nov. 20-21). The Minutemen will play eight straight conference games (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Boston University), before a pair of nonconference games against Providence (Dec. 19-20) and UMass Lowell (Dec. 26-27).
Nonconference games could be rescheduled in the event a conference game gets postponed due to COVID-19. Conference games could be moved to these nonconference dates. Hockey East is calling these weekends “Flex Weekends” because it allows all teams a chance to play an equal number of league games.
“Our goal is to try and get all of our teams over the double round-robin schedule of games,” Metcalf said. “If we are able to play some additional games on top of that, obviously that would be fabulous. We think the protocols that we put in place give ourselves the best chance. Trying to put everything in an appropriate perspective I think there is a some optimism but I think we all have to be very realistic.”
Metcalf said Hockey East settled on a conference-only season early in the summer, due to the fact all teams are in New England and all the schools can achieve the level of testing needed during the season.
The geography and makeup of other conferences made it too difficult to build in true nonconference games.
“We’re trying to take advantage of those things by going to a conference-only schedule and, quite frankly, I think it was a no-brainer,” he said.
Metcalf said the postseason is a fluid situation.
“Would I anticipate the playoffs are going to look a little different, yes I would,” he said. “How they are going to look is something yet to be determined and where we are going to do them is yet to be determined.”
“March seems like a long way away right now. We’re trying to survive to November 20,” Metcalf added.
Mike Moran can be reached at mmoran@gazettenet.com. Follow on Twitter @mikemoranDHG.