Will the new ice hockey season be a bridge to the future?

Right now, we ought to be sparking a countdown to the puck dropping, and beginning to feel the buzz over signings, new strips and season ticket sales.

Instead, there is a void filled with uncertainty.

No starting date, no schedule and, in all honesty, no clear indication when, or even if, the sport will resume.

Rewind 12 months and Fife Flyers were exactly 62 days away from their first pre-season friendly against Herlev Eagles, and had announced the return of Mike Cazzola, Bari McKenzie (inset) and Chase Schaber, with Evan Bloodoff and Shane Owen departing for new teams.

In 2020, hockey’s long off-season looks set to extend deep into the Autumn.

Across the EIHL there have been little more than a dozen or so announced signings, and most of them have been returnees – and most of these deals would have been done and dusted long ago.

Cardiff Devils and Glasgow Clan are in the market for new head coaches, but definitive news from anywhere has been scant.

There is little any of them can say when they are not in control of events, which is why engagement is so important this summer.

Online replays of big games, fun events via Zoom, and web interviews keep alive the connections with fans, and those who do it well will reap the benefits when the doors finally re-open.

Those who don’t may find lockdown has given people the time to explore other ways of filling their time.

But, I suspect the market for endless re-runs of games is limited.

Live sport is all about being there, being in the moment and sharing the highs and lows of your team as it hits the ice – and when hockey no longer sits so prominently on their radar, the journey from die-hard season ticket holder to casual long distance observer isn’t that difficult to make.

In that respect, the sport’s challenges may only just be beginning.

Right now, coaches and directors are all working on several outcomes while trying to build teams in the conventional sense.

As summer ticks away, they must now be looking at their Plan B and Plan C, and also wondering if 2020-21 is simply null and void.

A condensed season may be the best we can all hope for – consider it a bridge to get us to the future model commencing in 2021-22. Simply getting everyone across safely won’t be easy.

The sport has no TV money to soften the financial impact, and webcasts cannot hope to replicate gate receipts, leaving clubs to fund a route through lockdown and beyond.

It may be close to the end of the year before we see hockey back at all – does anyone really expect the Magic 5 weekend to go ahead as scheduled in Nottingham ? – so we have to start managing our own expectations right now.

Socially distanced spectating sounds wretched, but it may be all we have.

That may be one fan every six seats or ‘x’ per row – the numbers will be dictated by our Governments, and could easily be different for Scottish, English and Welsh rinks just to add another layer of chaos to the planning.

The fear must be that fans decide that isn’t what they know, or want, and drift away.

Only by looking back can they envisage what ‘normal’ match nights looked like.

The road ahead is a blank canvas. You cannot define ‘normal’ right now.

How do you present ‘socially distanced sport’ when we’ve never seen it, or been part of it?

Clubs are going to have to work harder than ever to create a model that chimes with fans, and, somehow, sell it as not about lowering expectations, but adjusting them.

That’s a hell of a task when it is still trying to get its head around the whole impact of lockdown.

It’s late June, and we’re about to complete 100 days in lockdown. There are another 100 to go before we can start to look ahead with any degree of certainty.

That puck ain’t dropping any time soon.