COVID-19 forces WHL to delay start of season

With COVID-19 cases spiking across the country, it was little surprise the Western Hockey League had to walk back from its plan to start their regular season on Jan. 8.

The WHL has been in a holding pattern since cancelling the remainder of the 2019-20 season in March, just before the start of the playoffs.

So for the Edmonton Oil Kings, it's a matter of waiting to see what happens with the pandemic whether they'll be able to get the season off the ground.

“The league has done everything in their power to try and get a season together and all the planning that's been done on the back end, from protocol perspective and all the safety that's been put in place for the players and the staff, there's been a tremendous amount of work done and it's been a real positive in that matter,” said Oil Kings general manager Kirt Hill. “But at the end of the day, it's the virus that's going to control things, and the health authorities they're going to be the ones that determine when the start date to the season is.

“There is only so much work you can do on one side of the fence to get things going, but until things get under control, it doesn't look like it's going to be a reality right now.”

In terms of the infection rate, things are much worse now than they were when the league first halted play in March. According to Alberta Health Services there are roughly 20,000 active cases in the province with 763 in hospital and 138 in intensive care. The province set a record with 30 deaths Thursday.

“I think things are a little open-ended right now. I think the teams in the league and the league itself is really committed to trying to get a season going for our players, which we feel we owe that to them 100 per cent and we feel it's important for them to develop,” Hill said. “We're just continuing to work with the local health authorities on our protocols and ensuring that we have all of our protocols in place so when we are given that green light to start planning for camps and planning for our regular season, we're ready to go right away.”

Under normal circumstances, the WHL would be heading into its Christmas break at this time with almost half of the regular season having been played. Losing the post-season to the virus last year, the league does not want to shutter this season as well.

“I don't think that's something the league has thoroughly talked about at this point, I still think there is still lots of potential opportunities out there,” Hill said. “Depending on what happens with the Memorial Cup and the playoffs, at the end of the day, there is probably the potential to play until the end of June if we had to get going a little bit later, if we wanted to offer a development season for our players.”