The National Hockey League is one step closer to returning to action. The league and the players union agreed that training camps will begin on July 10. Currently, the NHL is in the second phase of its plan to restart the season.
Players are now allowed to gather in small groups at their team's training facility, and the league hopes to allow larger groups to practice in the coming weeks.
They expect training camps to last for about three weeks. The locations of where the camps will be held are still being determined. Teams in Canada may move their training camps to the United States because any players entering Canada would be subject to a two-week quarantine.
The league has not set a date for when the season will resume and cautioned that the target date of July 10 could change if the coronavirus pandemic worsens over the next month.
When the season resumes, it will feature 24 teams playing in two hub cities, one for the Eastern Conference and one for the Western Conference. The bottom eight teams in each conference will face off in a best-of-5 qualifying series, while the top four teams will play in a round-robin style tournament to determine the seeding for the playoffs.