The good news? Illinois hockey is close to the finish line.

The bad news? Illini athletics’ race to complete the project has been temporarily halted.

Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman told Illini Inquirer on Monday that the Illini were preparing for a late spring announcement of the formal creation of a Division-I men’s hockey program and a downtown Champaign multi-purpose arena, the culmination of almost four years of planning, fund-raising and coordination with local leaders.

But the pandemic COVID-19 has put at least a temporary pause on that progress.

“Certainly we're not unique in that we have a lot of different things happening that were impacted by the virus, just like any other business, a lot of other families, everybody’s lives have been touched by this virus,” Whitman told Illini Inquirer. “Being very candid, we were gearing up for an announcement as early as next month (May) where we felt like we had put everything in order and felt like we had all of our ducks in a row and were very bullish on the downtown arena project and the addition of hockey. This has caused us to most likely hit the pause button on that. I hope it’s not a long-term pause. It’s something we’re still very excited about, but we’ve got to let the dust settle here a little bit and see how this whole thing unfolds over the next I’d say 12 to 18 months. Maybe shorter in terms of the implications of the arena, hockey project.”

Whitman has partnered with local businesses, investors and municipalities in organizing the construction of a $100 million downtown Champaign arena that Illinois would use for a new men’s hockey program and its current women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s gymnastics and wrestling programs.

The process has been painstaking for Whitman, but one he thinks can benefit the athletics program with a new, marquee sports program, benefit four other programs with state-of-the-art facilities and benefit the Champaign-Urbana community and economy. The arena would be used for youth tournaments and would be adjacent to a new hotel and convention center.

But the uncertainty of the pandemic has pushed pause on the project and many planned Illini projects due to the financial uncertainty ahead.

Whitman said the loss of the Big Ten Tournament and NCAA Tournament will cost the program about $2.0 million to $2.5 million, a cost he said the athletics department can absorb. But he said the loss of football attendance or games due to the pandemic will have a much larger impact.

“We’ll be OK in the short-term,” Whitman said. “I think the bigger question for us and the bigger question for college athletics is what does this next year look like and what does football season look like and what does men’s basketball look like.”

Whitman said the department has looked at a “laundry list” of cost-cutting measures the program could potentially take if necessary, including limits on travel, limits on hiring and changes to the schedule. He said staffing and salary reductions are all in the conversation as well, though no decisions have been made in that regard.

“We’re in the process of putting together what we call kind of a decision matrix where we have an entire list of levers we could pull, and we have a sense of what each lever would yield in terms of a cost savings and then what timelines we can attach to those levers,” Whitman said. "There are certain windows that could close if we don't work within a certain timeframe."

Hockey recently has moved lower on Whitman’s list of priorities. Student-athlete, coach and fan player safety remains the top priority followed by trying to plan contingencies for the potential scheduling and financial fallout caused by the further delay or postponement of Illini sports.

But the postponement of a hockey announcement also comes as a blow.

“It’s really unfortunate on so many lives in just looking at the world through our very small lens here with Illinois athletics," Whitman said. "You can talk about the loss of the basketball postseason, the wrestling postseason, the discontinuation of all of our spring sports and then certainly this arena project. The hockey opportunity is something we were really looking forward to and thought we were in a good place with. We’ll just have to hit the short-term pause button and try to come back to it as soon as we can and what timelines we can attach to those certain levers. So there are certain windows that will close if we don’t act on them within a certain timeframe.”