Will Canucks' first road game of the season be cancelled?
It’s very possible the Vancouver Canucks could have some of their early season games cancelled.
The team is scheduled to fly east for their Florida road trip next week. They are supposed to play the Tampa Bay Lightning next Tuesday and the Florida Panthers on Thursday before moving north to Philadelphia.
Those games might not happen as the Florida area braces itself for one of the most powerful storms on record. Hurricane Milton is projected to hit the area later today or tomorrow and is expected to cause mass destruction.
Milton has been switching between a Category 4 and Category 5 storm. Sustained wind speeds have reached as high as 165 miles per hour,Ā and massive flooding is expected.
This deadly storm follows Hurricane Helene, which hit Florida a few weeks ago and killed more than 200 people. Residents of the area have been told to evacuate and the Canadian government has issued an advisory to avoid “non-essential travel.”
āHelene was a wake-up call, this is literally catastrophic and I can say without any dramatization whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,ā said Tampa Bay mayor Jane Castor in a recent interview with CNN.
The outer rings of the storm have already started to touch land in Florida and over the next day, the full picture of the devastation will start to become clear. The peak of the storm is expected to arrive on land over the next 48 hours.
Timelapse flying by Hurricane Milton today about 2 hours ago. Storm looks bigger but less symmetric than yesterday.
1/2000 sec, f8, 14mm, ISO 500, 0.5 sec interval, 30fps pic.twitter.com/XUjQEJPOGg
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 9, 2024
The Canucks game is scheduled for Tuesday, giving a few days between the brunt of the impact and puck drop. However, Tampa Bay is expected to be one of the most significantly affected areas and the damage could be extremely severe.
The flooding and storm surges in Tampa Bay are projected to reach more than 10 feet, which would spell mass destruction.
The Lightning already had preseason games cancelled this year due to the effects of these storms.
Tomorrow's game vs. Nashville at @AmalieArena, originally rescheduled from Sep. 27 due to effects from Hurricane Helene, has been cancelled as the Tampa Bay region prepares for Hurricane Milton.
Info: https://t.co/Ng4E1l4yTp pic.twitter.com/r1I2W7wm4I
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) October 6, 2024
“[Tampa Bay Lightning head coach] Jon Cooper texts me and they’re everywhere,” said Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet yesterday. “I think they’re in South Carolina [or] somewhere. It’s a tough go for those guys.”
The reigning Jack Adams winner said that he had not yet heard from the league as to whether the game will be happening. More details will surely be made available over the coming days.