The NHL just took the lead on a decision that, unfortunately, all American pro sports leagues should follow.
It was announced late Monday evening that the National Hockey League was pausing its season amid COVID-19 concerns, which came after more than 15% of the league’s players were put into virus protocols.
The announcement was eerily similar to the ones we all saw in March 2020 as the virus first began to surge in the United States when sports leagues — including the NHL, NBA and NCAA — halted their seasons for months, many of which returned later that summer.
However, unlike the previous announcement, the NHL has chosen to pause its season through Christmas Day and resume on Dec. 27 in an effort to slow (or eradicate) the spread of the virus in team facilities.
It’s unclear how much closing facilities for just four days, from Dec. 22-25, will actually help the situation, but hey, at least it’s something. The league is trying.
With the emergence of the highly contagious Omicron variant — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting on Monday that it now accounts for almost three-quarters of new infections — the number of positive cases is rising yet again dramatically all over the country.
And that includes, of course, within sports locker rooms.
The NHL is just one of the leagues with a major coronavirus problem, having already postponed 44 games this season due to virus outbreaks alone.
Another is the NBA, which announced on Sunday that it was postponing five games involving nine teams, bringing the season total to seven postponed games with (likely) plenty more to come.
The NBA has been ravaged by the virus, with more than 70 players around the league having been ruled out due to health and safety protocols as of Monday.
And, as we’ve learned throughout the nearly two-year-long pandemic: the virus doesn’t discriminate.
It’s affected All-Star and role players alike. Stars — like the Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, along with the Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young — have entered protocols (meaning they likely tested positive for the virus), along with a few coaches and even a team president (Masai Ujiri of the Toronto Raptors).
To put it lightly, the NBA season is in shambles at the moment.
And, as of the writing of this column, no action has been taken like that of the NHL, a measure that could quite possibly save a disastrous season if this gets any worse.
Or, the NBA could do what the NFL has chosen to do after more than 100 players tested positive over the past week: just don’t test them.
As it has been among all sports circles, COVID-19 made plenty of headlines during Week 15 of the NFL season, which saw three games postponed after a few teams — the Cleveland Browns, Los Angeles Rams and Washington Football Team — saw their rosters torn apart by the virus and active spreads, making it impossible to play on time without risk of widespread transmission.
So, with all of the positive tests coming in — including plenty among vaccinated, asymptomatic players — the NFL announced that it’d be halting its regular testing of asymptomatic vaccinated players, only opting to test those who show signs of potential infection or those who are selected at random.
In essence, while this means that NFL teams will likely be placing fewer players on the reserve/COVID-19 list, thus leading to fewer roster shakeups and (the league hopes) no more postponements, it means that players may be spreading the virus around their team facilities — and outside of it — without any knowledge of it, which is something that regular testing helps prevent.
It makes total sense why the NFL’s doing it.
It’s just a really, really bad move.
And that’s not to say that leagues like the NBA and NFL aren’t doing anything to try and limit the spread of the virus, both of which have ramped up virus restrictions over the past week.
It just might not be enough.
It’s wild for me, a die-hard sports fan who felt lost during the dark days of the early pandemic, to sit here and say that all of the leagues should pause their seasons … but they should absolutely consider it.
Not for 6 months or even 4 months or even a single month. It doesn’t have to be that long, since that’ll undoubtedly cause a boatload of logistical problems.
Just give the NHL’s strategy a shot.
Shut things down for a week, allow everyone to get healthy and try again.
Maybe it won’t work. Maybe it will. But at this point, we need to try anything we can to get the virus under control.
The NHL has the right idea. Time to follow suit.
Reporter Victor Hensley can be reached at vhensley@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @Frezeal33.