NASCAR races today, without fans. The states that have relaxed restrictions are not experiencing anything untenable and are proceeding to the next steps of relaxing restrictions. Hockey played in hub cities without fans seems pretty realistic in the near future.
I’m warming up to the model described in Burnside’s last article. Basically, 4 hub cities and teams play a round robin schedule. There are either 6 teams or 5 teams per hub. The difference is whether Chicago, Arizona, Montreal and Columbus are included. If they are, Minnesota crosses over to the Pacific and if they aren’t Winnipeg crosses over.
After the round robin, you combine regular season standings and reseed. There are best of 3 play-ins for either the 4/5 or the 3/6 and 4/5 depending which option you take. After that, proceed with the usual best of 7 series. All without fans, played at hubs (no home teams).
As a fan, I’d be totally into watching every game of that. Every game is meaningful, and rusty teams at the top of the standings aren’t penalized.