National Post (National Edition)
NHL just can't outrace COVID-19
Virus is already in midseason playing shape
You've got to appreciate the timing. On the same day that the final hurdle was cleared for Canadian NHL teams to be able to play at home this year, the challenge of holding a bubble-free season at the height of a global pandemic reared its ugly head for all to see.
In Columbus, “an abundance of caution” due to COVID-19 concerns forced several players, including Seth Jones, Max Domi and captain Nick Foligno, to miss practice on Friday. And in Dallas, the start to their season was pushed back from Jan. 14 to Jan. 19 after half a dozen players and a couple of staff members contracted the virus.
“Those individuals are self-isolating and following CDC and league protocols,” the Stars said in a statement. “As an appropriate precaution, the team's training facilities have been closed, effective immediately, and will remain closed for several days while further daily testing and contact tracing is conducted.”
In Canada, no team has reported any positive cases … yet. But give it some time.
With the start to the season less than a week away, the virus is already in midseason form. Numbers are spiking across Canada and the United States. And regardless of the safety measures being employed inside hockey dressing rooms and by the players themselves, the reality is no one can be completely safe from a virus that affects every single one of us.
The NHL knows this. It is partially why they all created the pandemic-friendly “taxi squad” for calling up players and also settled on a shortened season, which provides the league with the flexibility of postponing games whenever there is an outbreak. And as the Stars and Blue Jackets have shown, it's really a matter of when — and not if.
“It's not unexpected, I guess,” said Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases physician at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, Ont. “The model in last year's season worked because you had people in a giant bubble and you limited their exposure. But when you move away from it and you have people in their own home and interacting with their families, it's inevitable that you're going to see transmissions.
“It would be surprising if they didn't get it.”
In other news: the NHL is no different than any of the other professional sports leagues operating right now.
Whether it's the NFL's Cleveland Browns possibly heading into their first playoff game in 18 years without their head coach and seven players or the NBA's Boston Celtics forcing Tristan Thompson and two others into a seven-day quarantine, the reality is COVID-related absences are now part of the sports landscape.
The NHL, which opened training camps last weekend and is preparing for a Jan. 13 start, is getting a taste of this already.
This year is going to be a challenge. An enormous one.
It's one thing to pull off a two-month playoff tournament in a bubble, where there were zero cases of COVID-19. It's another to stage a 56-game regular season in cities across Canada and the United States. As much as we'd like to believe hockey players are somehow wired differently than basketball players or football and baseball players in how seriously they might take a health issue that might not affect them as much as other segments of the population, the virus does not discriminate.
COVID-19 is not immune to the cold. You can restrict travel and separate the Canadian teams from the American teams. But unless you are going to lock players inside their hotel rooms, then you're going to have to deal with the occasional outbreak.
“Oh, yeah, I think that's pretty clear that that's going to happen,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases physician and scientist with the University of Toronto and Toronto General Hospital. “You can try to make this as safe as possible. But given the burden of infection in North America now and given the sheer number of players and personnel involved, someone is going to get infected at some point.”
Does that mean that the NHL should rethink its desire to hold the season? Should provinces maybe reverse course about allowing teams to play in Canada?
Not exactly.
“We should be asking the question of how can we do this in a safe environment rather than just cancel everything,” said Bogoch. “Sometimes, you find that you just can't do it safely. Or sometimes, you might have to modify your approach.”
“If the league continues to have aggressive testing, then if players get COVID-19, they're not going to spread it far,” said Chagla. “I don't think we're going to get through a season without a few outbreaks. But hopefully, it gets limited to the league and doesn't get spread out of the communities.”
At the same time, if things do not get better — if the cases keep rising and the outbreaks affect team after team and jeopardize the quality of the competition — then you can see where this could be headed. If so, you won't have to go far to find a list of experts ready to tell the league “I told you so.”
“I appreciate that if you line up 10 of me (infectious disease experts), you're going to get 10 different answers,” said Bogoch. “But I really think this can happen. You just have to adhere to these protocols, under the caveat that you're probably going to have some positive cases.
“It can be done. I think they can do it. I really do.”