If the NHL and NBA cancelled the remainder of their 2019-20 seasons, you likely wouldn’t be surprised.
If Major League Baseball cancelled its 2020 season, you might nod and say something like “OK, that gets us into early November.”
Yes, and it also would mean the NFL must have postponed the start of its season.
All of these decisions would seem to hinge on when health officials will allow the return of large gatherings. And that, it seems, might not happen for months and months.
Here’s Dr. Allen Sills, who is the NFL’s chief medical officer:
“As long as we’re still in a place where when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don’t think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport. Because we’re going to have positive cases for a very long time.”
When I see experts in this field talking like this I start to wonder about junior hockey at all levels. Because if health officials won’t allow gatherings of 50 or more people by summer’s end, there won’t be junior hockey in August or September or . . .
Dwight Jaynes, who works out of Portland for NBC Sports Northwest, has summed up the situation involving pro sports by writing, in part, that the leagues “are going to have to accept the reality the the only game being played for months will be the waiting game.” . . . Jaynes makes a number of bang-on observations in that piece that is right here.
Rick Westhead of TSN tweeted on Saturday: “With eight US states still refusing to impose stay at home legislation, one NHL player agent tells me he’s advised clients to expect the US-Canada border to remain closed until well after Canadian Thanksgiving.” . . . In Canada, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving this year on Oct. 12. . . .
The City of Calgary has cancelled all public events and all permits for city parks or facilities through June 30. . . . The CFL’s Calgary Stampeders are scheduled to play a home exhibition game on May 30 and to open the regular season at home on June 12. They also are to play at home on June 18. . . . Naheed Nenshi, Calgary’s mayor, said Friday that neither the Stampeders nor the NHL’s Calgary Flames would be permitted to play games during this period. . . . There hasn’t been any official word on the status of the Calgary Stampede that is scheduled to open on July 3, but you would have to think it is in jeopardy. . . .
Here’s Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, with the Thought of the Day, this one from Mark Twain: “The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
Organizers have cancelled the Manitoba Summer Fair that had been scheduled for Brandon, from June 3-7. . . .
In Montreal, the Just For Laughs comedy festival has been postponed from July 15-26 and now will be held form Sept. 29 through Oct. 11. . . . Montreal’s 2020 Jazz Festival has been cancelled. It was to have begun on June 25 and run through July 4. . . .
The 2020 Vancouver Scotiabank half-marathon and 5K have been cancelled. The event had been scheduled for June 28. . . .
The WNBA has postponed training camps and the start of its regular season that was to have opened on May 15. . . .
The Preakness, which had been scheduled to run on May 16, has been postponed with organizers saying they are searching for a new date. And when the race is held, there won’t be an infield party, which has always been a huge attraction and attracts upwards of 100,000. . . . Earlier, the Kentucky Derby was moved from May 2 to Sept. 15. . . .
All the best to Kerry Eggers, who has written about the Portland Winterhawks for more years than he would care to remember. He was laid off from his job with the Portland Tribune on Thursday. He had been there for, he tweeted, “19-plus years and 45 years in the sportswriting biz.” Eggers also tweeted that he “was planning a July 31 retirement but, as Ralph Miller used to say, that’s the way the pickle squirts.” . . .
The BCHL’s Powell River Kings have signed Chad van Diemen as their general manager. He will work with Brock Sawyer, the team’s new director of hockey operations and head coach. . . . Van Diemen played for the Kings 20 years ago and also was an assistant coach (2009-15). . . . From Kamloops, he also spent two seasons (2015-17) as head coach of the BCHL’s Prince George Spruce Kings. . . . He and his family moved back to Powell River in 2017 and he has been on the team’s board of directors. . . .
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The NAHL’s St. Cloud Blizzard has hired Tom Chorske as general manager and Corey Miller as its new head coach. Both are former NHLers and both are Minnesota natives. They also were roommates in college and in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils. . . .
TAKING NOTE 