Gary Bettman doesn’t want to shut the NHL season down

As part of a question and answer period during a virtual town hall Tuesday, NHL boss Gary Bettman said shutting down the season is “not something I’m even contemplating.”

The town hall was hosted by the San Jose Sharks’ business alliance.

“I believe that if the right time comes, and the right circumstances, based on all of the options that we’re considering and our ability to execute them, we’ll get this season done,” Bettman said, via Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News. “I don’t want to sound Pollyanna, but cancelling is too easy a solution. That means you stop working hard to do all of the things that we’re doing, and I ultimately believe that there will be an opportunity.”

“We would like to bring a conclusion to this season,” Bettman added. “It’s got to be fair, it’s got to have integrity, and if we have to do it over the summer on some modified basis, then we’ll do it on that basis.”

The league is continuing to examine options when it comes to replaying the season and with these comments from Bettman, it appears we will actually have some kind of hockey this year.

The biggest question continues to be how the league will return to play with a conversation seeming to continue to circulate around having NHL hub cities.

On Twitter: @zjlaing