A tale of three leagues
COVID-19 made return-to-play plans the most elusive of moving targets for OHL, IBL, CEBL
“Pandemic” isn’t the only P word that can be used to describe 2020.
In sports, a much better word to sum up the calamity might be “pencil,” as in “2020: The Year of the Pencil.”
And, an equally important extension to that, well-used erasers at the end of those pencils.
After the first COVID-19 lockdown in mid-march initially postponed and, a short time later, ultimately cancelled sports at all levels, leagues — the harried schedulemakers, mostly — didn’t take all that long discovering the folly of writing anything in ink.
With everything involved with the pandemic so fluid and elusive, the fastest of moving targets, nothing couldn’t be regarded as permanent as far as return-to-play dates were concerned.
At best, they were a combination of educated guesses and wishful thinking.
Nowhere was this truer than in the Ontario Hockey League. After capping the regular season at 61 games, the cancellation of the 56 games remaining in the regular season was for many a hopeful sign that there would be playoffs eventually. A Memorial Cup champion for 2019-20 would finally be crowned.
A dim light was appearing at the end of the tunnel — a goal light.
Alas, that never wound up happening. The league, in conjunction with the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and the Western Hockey League, announced there would be no post-season play only five days later. The Memorial Cup would not be presented for the first time since it was first awarded in 1919.
On the home front, the decision to base playoff seeding on regular-season standings after 61 games left the Niagara Icedogs on the outside looking in for the first time in franchise history.
When the plug was pulled on league play, Niagara and the Kingston Frontenacs were tied for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 42 points with five and six games, respectively, remaining in league play. Kingston finished eighth on a tiebreaker based on wins, 19 to 18.
The last time the Icedogs failed to make the playoffs was 2005-06, their second-to-last season in Mississauga before relocating to St. Catharines.
While the unfinished season left the team with many “what ifs” — for example, would the Icedogs have continued their playoff streak had they been able to play their remaining five games? — they didn’t end 2019-20 empty-handed. As a consolation prize, the Icedogs were able to select playmaker Pano Fimis, 16, of Richmond Hill, second overall in the OHL draft.
The 5-foot-10 centre, who topped Niagara’s radar from Day 1 heading into the draft, has a huge upside. He had 41 goals and 63 assists for 104 points in 59 games in the Greater
Toronto Hockey League last season with the Toronto Jr. Canadiens. He had a 65.2 faceoff percentage in his second season in the GTHL.
Rather than wanting to finish a season, like their hockey brethren, the Intercounty Baseball League was eager to squeeze in a schedule, any kind of a schedule. If not a regular 36-game season, then 20 games. If not that, a championship tournament then.
Anything to get back on the diamond and give a quarantine-weary community a taste of normalcy.
This was especially the case in the region.
Given that they finished second to the long-established London Majors in their first season in Niagara, the Welland Jackfish entered 2020, hoping to build on a successful debut that also featured the first winning record in franchise history as well as advancing past the opening round of the playoffs for the first time.
Welland wasn’t the only team itching to step up to the plate. After the Barrie Baycats, Brantford Red Sox, and Kitchener Panthers decided not to play this year, the Jackfish, the Guelph Royals, Hamilton Cardinals, Toronto Maple Leafs and London all held out hope that the IBL would be able to play some games during the summer months.
On July 9, nearly two months after the season opener, the IBL announced that it wouldn’t be playing for the first time since the league was formed in 1919.
“Try as we might, there was no chance to have IBL baseball last year, breaking a 100-season streak,” commissioner John Kastner recalled in a state of the league statement issued on New Year’s Day.
“As we flip the calendar to 2021, we involved with The IBL look back at 2020 with no fondness whatsoever.”
Much like the Jackfish, the Canadian Elite Basketball League wanted the momentum from its inaugural season to carry over into 2020. Playing a non-traditional schedule — spring-summer, rather than fallwinter — the pro league didn’t want a season cancelled by COVID-19, erasing all the gains it made as the new kid on the block.
With seven teams across four provinces and under the jurisdiction of seven public health authorities, a return-to-play plan was especially challenging for the CEBL.
However, not insurmountable as it would turn out.
A decision to play a single-site championship tournament without fans at Meridian Centre in St. Catharines made the CEBL the first pro league in Canada to return to play following the first pandemic lockdown.
The 2020 Summer Series didn’t make any money for the league, but it was an “investment” that the league had to make. CEBL commissioner and chief executive officer Mike Morreale suggested in a stateof- the- league interview two months later the fledgling league couldn’t have afforded to remain on the sidelines.
“Had we just shut the doors in Year 2 and not picked up a basketball from August 2019 until May of 2021, it probably would have spelled the end of us,” he said.
Besides keeping the CEBL in the sports spotlight, the championship tournament inside the St. Catharines bubble provided the CBC with an opportunity to broadcast live team sports.
All 26 games at the showcase were livestreamed over the public broadcaster’s platforms, and seven games were televised nationally, including one featuring the host Niagara River Lions.