The Buffalo Sabres are one of 20 National Hockey League teams listed as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against insurance providers, alleging those companies declined to reimburse losses accrued as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The lawsuit, which was filed in June in the Supreme Court of California in Santa Clara, said the insurers refused to pay more than $1 billion in losses “on the erroneous basis that the Covid-19 virus does not cause physical loss or damage.”
The Sabres are listed by their formal name, Hockey Western New York LLC. The suit does not specify damages sought per team.
Factory Mutual Insurance Company, The Cincinnati Insurance Company, Starr Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Lexington Insurance Company and Federal Insurance Company are listed as defendants.
TSN was the first to report on the lawsuit Wednesday.
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The Covid-19 pandemic abruptly ended the 2019-20 regular season in March 2020 and forced the NHL to switch to an abbreviated 56-game schedule in 2020-21. The Sabres and other teams across the league couldn’t host capacity crowds, either. Buffalo hosted a limited amount of fans for only four games last season, an experiment that ended April 23 when a little more than 1,000 watched the Sabres defeat the Boston Bruins, 6-4.
“The hockey plaintiffs’ loss of revenue, initially from canceled games and then from playing games without fans in the arenas, and their extra expenses to get arenas ready to play and host fans once safe, exceeds one billion dollars,” the lawsuit claims.
Unlike the NFL, whose teams benefit from lucrative television contracts, the majority of NHL revenues come from ticket sales and getting fans in the seats.
A month into the Covid-19 shutdown in April 2020, Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Pegulas’ sports and entertainment businesses, laid off 21 people, furloughed 104 and temporarily cut pay for more than three dozen executives.
In June 2020, the Pegulas fired 22 hockey operations employees, including General Manager Jason Botterill, with Terry Pegula laying out a new vision for the Sabres: “Effective, efficient and economic. In today's sports world, with all the existing technology, we can move forward much leaner and much more efficient. We're gonna get leaner. It's just the way the world's heading."
The Sabres have since replenished their hockey operations department, which is led by GM Kevyn Adams.
On the mend
Defenseman Robert Hagg skated with the Sabres on Thursday morning for the first time since he suffered a lower-body injury in a 4-2 victory at Winnipeg on Dec. 14. Hagg, a pending unrestricted free agent, is averaging 17:51 of ice time in 25 games. He ranks second on the Sabres in hits (49) and first in blocked shots (56). Hagg’s return isn’t imminent, though.
“It is encouraging that he was out there. Just keep in mind it was only a pregame skate,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “It’s not contact. If it was a regular practice, he would not have been out there today. … I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves on that.”
Winger Drake Caggiula remained out of the lineup Thursday as he continues to work his way back from an upper-body injury that’s kept him out of the lineup for 14 games. Caggiula, 27, has two goals and five points in 18 games this season.
Empty building
The Ottawa Senators plan to not have fans in Canadian Tire Centre for at least two January games, including a matchup against the Sabres on Jan. 18, after new Covid-19-related restrictions were implemented by the province of Ontario on Wednesday.
