‘ We’ll have to be creative,’ says Team Canada coach
Tourigny eyes post-quarantine training camp
With the entire program quarantined in Red Deer hotel rooms for 14 days, bringing their world junior selection camp to a sudden and alarming halt, Team Canada’s one and only option is to try to make the best of a very bad situation.
So, there they were, four days after two players tested positive for COVID-19 and subsequent contact tracing shut everything down, trying to put an optimistic spin on what has spiralled very quickly into a crushing setback.
Team officials admit it’s not going to be easy, trying to manoeuvre their way though an unprecedented development that rocked Hockey Canada and seriously jeopardizes their tournament hopes.
But when you’ve only got once choice, it doesn’t take long to make it.
“I’ve never been here, nobody has ever been here,” head coach André Tourigny said during Thursday afternoon’s Zoom call. “Nobody has had to stop their team for two weeks and then get going after. We’ll have to be creative and really optimistic and bring a lot of energy.”
Learning they’ll have to be locked up alone in individual hotel rooms for two weeks — collecting rust and missing out on valuable practice time — felt like a punch in the gut, but Tourigny said it didn’t take long for the players to rebound.
“They have been outstanding in their attitude,” he said. “We knew when we were heading into camp that this was possible, we know what was going on on the planet, but the way the players and the staff have bounced back is really impressive.
“If they would have crumbled, it would have been something we would have been really worried about. It was the reverse — they showed leadership and character. This team is still moving forward.”
Spending 24 hours a day in a hotel room is going to be brutal — there’s no way around it — but Hockey Canada will do the best it can to make it bearable. They will have daily (virtual) group workouts and guest speakers, as well as a social committee to organize games and activities. Players and staff will also fill out daily mental health questionnaires and have access to counselling, if needed.
“We broke the news to the players at 4 p. m. ( Wednesday) and right away we began to form committees,” said Tourigny. “The number of solutions and ideas we had from the players was overwhelming. The way they responded to the news and the way they engaged after to make sure we are moving forward is unbelievable.”
From a hockey perspective, nobody has any idea how Team Canada will look coming out of this on Dec. 7 ( the 14- day quarantine began on Nov. 23 after the two players tested positive).
“I guess the best time to answer that will be Dec. 7,” said Tourigny. “But I’m pretty confident. You see players who’ve been out with an injury for a year and they come back and perform two weeks later. We can do it.”
Canada needs to cut its roster to 25 players ( down from 46) by the time it enters the Edmonton bubble on Dec. 13. That gives officials six days to pick the team, while having to take it easy in the first few days of practice because they’ve all been sitting on the bed watching TV for two weeks.
How can you possibly pick a team with so little ice time and information? Simple: They have no choice. Even Tourigny admits they don’t quite have that part figured out yet.
“At this time, I can’t give a precise answer,” he said. “We all ask ourselves the same question. Our focus has been to make sure the players are in the right environment and make sure that we took care of them mentally.
“We had a lot of meetings and committees to make those things happen. We haven’t had a lot of time to talk about our process moving forward.”
Getting back on the ice Dec. 7 still leaves 20 days of runway before Canada’s opening game on Dec. 26, although getting everyone from a dead stop to world championship speed without anyone getting injured is going to be a delicate process.
But with everyone isolated in their rooms, Hockey Canada senior vice-president Scott Salmond believes this will be the end of the exposure risk and there won’t be an outbreak. Of course, there has already been exposure to the two infected players ( both of whom are asymptomatic), so everyone will hold their breath until the next few test results come back clean.
Any player who tests positive after Sunday won’t be allowed to participate in the tournament.
“The time is on our side,” Salmond said. “If we were to have a situation like this, the time is now so we are able to adapt to it. We’re quite confident we will be COVID free after the 14 days and we want to keep it that way.
“Whether it means going to Edmonton (early) or staying in Red Deer, we want to do whatever is best for our group.”
Salmond is also confident the players will fight through this and come out strong on the other side.
“These are high- performance athletes and high- performance people,” he said. “They’re resilient.”