QMJHL coach recalls ‘bus ride to nowhere’

Jim Hulton’s lasting image of the 2019-20 season is a bus ride to nowhere.

The head coach and general manager of the Charlottetown Islanders was travelling with his team for a pair of Quebec Major Junior Hockey League games against the Cape Breton Eagles earlier this month when word came down.

Following the lead of other sports across North America, the Canadian Hockey League was suspending play in response to the widening COVID-19 pandemic.

The rest of the regular schedule was cancelled shortly thereafter, but hope remained for the post-season and the annual Memorial Cup tournament.

That hope, however, was snuffed out last week when the CHL — an umbrella organization for Canada’s three top-tier junior circuits — pulled the plug amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

“We were literally on a bus and were told to turn around,” Hulton said. “We were four hours into a six-hour trip and turned around. That’s the lasting memory of our group being together.

“Not the way you want to remember a season.”

Before the announcement, there were signs that junior hockey wouldn’t be able to delay its decision much longer. The Memorial Cup, awarded every year since 1919 and pencilled in for late May in Kelowna, B.C., was already fastapproaching.

Coaches and players were hoping for more time, but as the virus that’s already killed thousands of people around the world continued to spread, the announcement seemed inevitable.

“It’s difficult to process,” Hulton said. “Normally in a season you’d have a chance to prepare. You’re either missing the playoffs or if you’re in the playoffs in the heat of a battle, and you know there’s going to be one winner and one loser.

“But here, everybody lost in the blink of an eye.”

Ottawa 67’s head coach Andre Tourigny, whose team was ranked No. 2 in the CHL, was looking to make another run after opening last spring’s playoffs with an Ontario Hockey Leaguerecord 14 consecutive wins before dropping four straight to the Guelph Storm in the final.

“I have no doubt it’s the right decision,” he said. “As a hockey team you win, you lose. Some years you have better chance, but that’s sports.

“It’s more on the human side seeing guys who have played their last junior game, that is extremely tough.”

Many teams across the country sent players home immediately after the season was postponed amid fears of spreading the virus and the closing of international borders.

There were no in-person goodbyes, team dinners, handshakes or hugs.