National Post (National Edition)
A GREAT UNKNOWN
SPORTS LEAGUE PLANS ARE ADJUSTING AS THE PANDEMIC SITUATION EVOLVES
The distance from unthinkable to routine has proven to be remarkably short in recent days.
Five days ago, North America’s sports leagues had only applied social-distancing measures to the media, while still inviting tens of thousands to gather in crowds on game nights. Then came word that they were considering the bizarre prospect of empty arenas, and before that could even be implemented, they shut down operations because a basketball player became sick from COVID-19.
Now, coming out of the first weekend in modern memory without any kind of sports on the calendar, the news is that the shutdowns will likely last much longer than first imagined.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control said late Sunday that it advised a ban on gatherings of “more than 50” people be in effect for eight weeks, as the United States tries to avoid a widespread health-care crisis.
Given that leagues like the National Hockey League and National Basketball Association put themselves on hold only when Utah’s Rudy Gobert dropped a metaphorical coronavirus bomb in the middle of their operations, it was possible to imagine there would be significant pushback on the CDC’s request. The leagues want to return to play for the obvious revenue-generating reasons, but also to minimize the disruption to schedules, allow for some form of playoff tournament, and, crucially, preserve the idea of relatively normal 2021 seasons. A return to action in mid-May would make much of that logistically impossible.
Instead, the CDC’s eightweek request appears to have been met with a curt nod. The NHL announced on Monday morning that players are allowed to leave the country and self-quarantine until March 27. More importantly, the league statement said that at the end of the self-quarantine period, it hoped to be able to provide further guidance on the possibility of a “training camp period roughly 45 days into the 60-day period covered by the CDC’s directive.” That kind of schedule would mean a two-week camp and resumption of game action — quite possibly in still-empty arenas — by mid-May.
It is hard to wrap one’s head around what kind of season, and post-season, would be left by then. Even if each team were to play just a handful of regular-season games in order to shake off the rust and then go straight into the playoffs, those tournaments would potentially stretch into the middle of the summer. It takes two weeks to complete a seven-game series, allowing for the usual amount of rest and travel days, so a four-round tournament lasts for about two months. Suddenly, the most important games of the leagues that are generally a winter pastime would be taking place in late July.
This is, to be clear, the optimistic scenario.
If we have learned anything over the past week, it’s that a plan becomes obsolete at almost the moment it has been spoken into existence. The worst-case possibility of seasons that ended on March 11, never to resume, will become more realistic as each day passes with coronavirus cases climbing in the United States and Canada. Even if the NHL and NBA could declare themselves to be confident that their players were virus-free — a realistic possibility if they all follow orders and isolate themselves through the end of the month — there will be resistance to a return to play if the coronavirus situation has not stabilized locally.
That resistance would come from health authorities and politicians afraid of signalling a return to normalcy at a time when they might still want the public to be taking extraordinarily abnormal measures. It can’t be forgotten that it was the shuttering of our leagues that made this thing real for a lot of people, that turned it from a story about China and Iran and Italy into one on our doorsteps. The return of sports, even if the games themselves can be held safely, cannot be allowed to outpace the situation in our hospitals. The return will be welcome, a sign that the worst is over, but for that reason it cannot be allowed to happen too early.
All of which makes me think that the return, when it happens, will be more unusual than we are yet willing to consider. Playoffs could include short series, best of five or best of three, or even some single-game elimination wackiness that would introduce a new level of chaos. These kinds of tournaments wouldn’t be fair, in the manner that we usually associate with these leagues, where the long slog of a regular season allows good teams to build up a certain degree of advantage in post-season situations. And while there would understandable fretting about the integrity of handing out a championship in a special playoff system that would be shot through with randomness, in the end it would be nice just to have something to cheer about. I would take champions of dubious merit over seasons that were simply lost to history. March Madness-style NHL and NBA tournaments? Unthinkable now. Perhaps not in a week or two.