It appears that the OHL is in the process of preparing a policy that will deal with mandatory vaccination prior the start of training camps for the 2021-22 season.
Mark Scheig, who among other things covers the OHL and specifically the Erie Otters for thehockeywriters.com tweeted on Saturday afternoon:
“I am hearing that the OHL . . . will be implementing a policy that will require all players, staff, officials, volunteers and, I believe, billet families to be fully vaccinated within two weeks of the start of training camp.
“My understanding is that there will be accommodations to some degree. But the significance of this is non-vaxxed players/staff could be removed from the roster or placed on leave for the duration of the pandemic.”
Players in the OHL are scheduled to report to training camp on Sept. 4 with the regular season to open on Oct. 7.
Meanwhile, there isn’t any word on whether mandatory vaccination is something that might be implemented as a CHL-wide measure, meaning the QMJHL and WHL also would be involved.
As regards the WHL, you have to think it has at least been discussed by the board of governors.
The move towards mandatory vaccination in some areas is getting noisier and noisier, and it isn’t going to go away anytime soon. I also wonder how WHL teams will deal with seating in their home arenas when it comes to opening the doors to those who are fully vaccinated and those who aren’t vaccinated at all.
But when it comes to mandating that players must be vaccinated, can a sports league really tell a group of players ages 16 to 20 that they have to fall in line? Then again there isn’t a players’ union involved, so . . .
F Thanasis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks didn’t play in Game 5 of the NBA final on Saturday night after having to enter health and safety protocols. . . . The 28-year-old has averaged 0.7 points and 3.5 minutes per game in these playoffs. . . . The visiting Bucks, who were down 16 points in the early going, won Saturday’s game, 123-119, to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. They get their first chance to wrap it up at home on Tuesday. . . . Milwaukee last won an NBA title in 1971.
ICYMI, the New York Islanders traded F Andrew Ladd and three draft picks to the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday afternoon. That’s it. That’s the trade. The Islanders didn’t get anything in return. Don’t you just love today’s NHL where teams are able to do that just to dump some salary? . . . BTW, those draft picks are a second-rounder in 2021, a conditional second-rounder in 2022 and a conditional third-rounder in 2023. . . . Ladd, 35, has played 950 regular-season NHL games, the last four of them in 2019-20. Last season, he played one game — with the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
Jack Finarelli, aka The Sports Curmudgeon, after Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game:
“It was a happenstance instead of a happening. A quick summary here:
- The AL won the game.
- The teams wore uniforms made specifically for the All-Star Game.
- The uniforms were genuinely ugly.”
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Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle didn’t like those uniforms, either: “After bombing horribly with those generic All-Star uniforms — yo, Rob Manfred, nobody loved them — we’ll get more of the same next year at Dodger Stadium. It’s all about sponsorship bucks, and Nike really blew it with this year’s designs, especially the all-blue disasters with unreadable names. We’re thinking they really get creative next year with special team pajamas. Maybe those really silly ones with the squirrels chasing hippos.”
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While those All-Star Game uniforms were butt ugly, there was some good news as Rob Manfred, the MLB commissioner, said before the game that there likely will be a couple of changes prior to the 2022 season. That free runner on second base in extra innings? Gone. Seven-inning doubleheaders? Gone. . . . Manfred said those two situations “were adopted based on medical advice to deal with COVID” and that “they are less likely to become part of our permanent landscape than some of the other rules.” . . . Don’t forget that the CBA between MLB owners and the players runs out on Dec. 1, and these parties have a history that isn’t good when it comes to these kinds of negotiations.
A note to CBC Radio: So you really did dump Randy Bachman’s Vinyl Tap after 16 wonderful seasons. Well, then, I’m just going to have to give you your walking papers, too. I mean, I quite enjoy listening to Kathleen Edwards, but one of her 2012 shows in place of Vinyl Tap just doesn’t cut it. So you are free to count me as a former listener of all things CBC Radio. For whatever that might be worth. . . . Hey, Randy, please let me know where Vinyl Tap ends up after you’ve taken care of business. Oh, and thanks so much for 16 years of great listening.
Headline at The Onion: Conor McGregor Undergoes 3 Hours Of Surgery To Repair Fractured Ego
A midweek tweet from comedy writer Alex Kaseberg (@AlexKaseberg): “Just learned on ‘Jeopardy’ a coyote can run 40 MPH, twice as fast as a roadrunner. Next thing you know they’ll try to tell us a coyote can’t paint a train tunnel on a canyon wall and then get run over by the train that comes out of it.”
Three athletes, two of them residents of the Olympic Village, have tested positive for COVID-19 in Tokyo. . . . These are the first two athletes who are staying in the Village to have tested positive. Another athlete who is not staying there also has tested positive. There are a number of athletes staying in hotels. . . . The IOC has said that the Olympic Village will be the “safest place” in Tokyo when it comes to avoiding the coronavirus. . . . Organizers haven’t identified the athletes or their countries of residence. . . . Since July 1, there have been 55 positive tests involving people linked to these Games.
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The Colorado Rockies are without manager Bud Black, first-base coach Ron Gideon and four players as they play a weekend series against the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers. All are involved with MLB’s contact-tracing protocols. . . . Three RHP — Yency Almonte, Jhoulys Chacin and Antonio Senzatela — and OF Yonathan Daza were placed on the injured list. . . . The team wouldn’t say whether anyone was experiencing symptoms or had tested positive. . . . It is known that the Rockies were one of the first teams to reach the 85 per cent vaccination rate.
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Mike Lupica, in the New York Daily News, after six players with the New York Yankees went on the MLB COVID-19 list:
“They can say whatever they want to, but one of the reasons it happens this way, absolutely, is because there are members of this baseball team — and others for sure — who are too stupid or selfish or stubborn or all of the above to get vaccinated, one summer after one of the darkest our country has ever known.
“And that is on these ballplayers who don’t just endanger themselves, but endanger people around them. This isn’t about religious liberty or politics or anything else at this point with the anti-vaxxers. It is about living in a new kind of bubble, the one in Stupidville. You feel sorry for these guys. There’s a reason why doctors are now talking about a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated.’ ”
That complete column is right here.
Lupica, again: “Tom Brady is telling us now that he played last season with a torn MCL . . . why? Was Brady this chatty in Foxboro, I can’t recall.”
Scott Ostler, in the San Francisco Chronicle:
“If I was Joe Biden, I would send a heath expert to the WNBA with instructions to find out how that league became a sports-world leader in COVID vaccinations. While men’s leagues struggle to reach minimum levels of vax, the WNBA steps up and takes it like a woman. It’s almost as if WNBA players value team over personal politics and misinformation.”
If you are interested in being a living kidney donor, more information is available here:
Living Kidney Donor Program
St. Paul’s Hospital
6A Providence Building
1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6
Tel: 604-806-9027
Toll free: 1-877-922-9822
Fax: 604-806-9873
Email: donornurse@providencehealth.bc.ca
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Vancouver General Hospital Living Donor Program – Kidney
Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre
Level 5, 2775 Laurel Street
Vancouver, BC V5Z 1M9
604-875-5182 or 1-855-875-5182
kidneydonornurse@vch.ca
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Or, for more information, visit right here.
JUST NOTES: The USHL’s Fargo Force needs a head coach following the departure of Pierre-Paul Lamoureux. He had been the head coach for two seasons after earlier working as associate head coach, director of scouting and assistant coach at various times. Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald tweeted: “Pierre-Paul Lamoureux stepping down after leading Fargo to the Clark Cup Finals. Lamoureux says he will invest more time in his family. Not sure if it played a role, but it was fairly widely known in USHL circles that he wasn’t exactly compensated like other league head coaches.”
contract. They selected Polshakov, who will turn 18 on Sept. 18, in the CHL’s 2021 import draft. . . . He had nine goals and 17 assists in 38 games with his club team in 2020-21 and also captained his country’s team at the IIHF U-18 World championship in Texas, where he had one assist in three games. . . . His father, Alexander, and grandfather, Valeri, both have been prominent in Belarus’s hockey community. . . . The Wheat Kings hold the WHL rights to two other imports — F Marcus Kallionkieli of Finland and D Yaroslav Busygin of Russia — but both have signed pro contracts. Kallionkieli, 20, has signed with the Vegas Golden Knights, who selected him in the fifth round of the NHL’s 2019 draft. The Wheat Kings picked Busygin, 18, in the CHL’s 2020 import draft and actually signed him, but he played at home in 2020-21 because of the pandemic and is expected to play there again in 2021-22.
Wheat Kings for a seventh-round pick in the WHL’s 2023 draft. . . . Lambos, from Winnipeg, has five goals and 14 assists in 126 regular-season games, all with Brandon. He had two assists in 21 games in the Regina hub earlier this year. . . . He was selected by the Victoria Royals in the third round of the WHL’s 2016 bantam draft. Brandon picked him up in a January 2018 trade. . . . His 18-year-old brother, Carson, is a defenceman with the Winnipeg Ice and is likely to be a first-round selection in the NHL’s 2021 draft on July 23. . . . The Silvertips ended the 2021 developmental season with five 2001-born players on their roster — D Zach Ashton, F Hunter Campbell, F Gage Concalves, F Jalen Price and G Dustin Wolf. . . . Brandon still has six such players on the roster with which it finished the season — Finnish F Marcus Kallionkieli, G Ethan Kruger, F Ben McCartney, D Chad Nychuk, D Neithan Salame and D Braden Schneider. Last week, the Wheat Kings dealt D Rylan Thiessen, 20, to the Swift Current Broncos for a conditional ninth-round pick in the 2021 draft.
contract. . . . An interesting note from the Chiefs’ news
contract. They selected him in the first round of the 2021 CHL import draft. . . . From Minsk, the 18-year-old had six goals and five assists in 24 regular-season games with his country’s U-18 team. He also played in the IIHF U-18 World Championship in Texas, putting up a goal and two assists in five games. . . . He also had two goals and two assists in 13 games with Dinamo Molodechno of the country’s top pro league, and one goal in two games with Minskie Zubry of Vysshaya. . . . The Hurricanes didn’t have any imports on the roster with which they concluded the 2021 developmental season. They did have one on their 2019-20 roster — D Danila Palivko of Belarus. He turns 20 on Nov. 30 and signed with Admiral Vladivostok of the KHL earlier this month.
seat in the house for their home-opener at IG Field on Aug. 5. But you will have to be fully vaccinated — meaning you will have to have had your second shot by July 21 — and have a Manitoba immunization card in order to attend. Also, children under 12 will be allowed in, but only if accompanied by at least one fully vaccinated parent. . . . The wearing of facemasks will be optional for fans. . . . The Blue Bombers, who haven’t played since winning the 2019 Grey Cup with a 33-12 victory over Hamilton on Nov. 24 in Calgary, are to entertain the Tiger-Cats in their opener. The stadium in Winnipeg has a capacity of 33,500. . . . Interestingly, provincial governments and health officials in Saskatchewan and Alberta have said the Roughriders, Calgary Stampeders and Edmonton Elks are free to open to full capacity and that fans don’t have to be fully vaccinated.
“It set us all back emotionally, and we decided to just take a step back from it all. Zach then made the decision to stick with his chest catheter and won’t agree to any more surgeries, unless it’s a kidney.”
Going into March, Zach had always dealt with a medical team at B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver. That all changed with a meeting that month during which they learned that his file was being transferred to “the adult world” at Vancouver General Hospital.
Americans, got the day started by announcing that head coach Kelly Buchberger’s contract isn’t being renewed.
Love joined the NHL’s Calgary Flames as head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Stockton Heat.
“sources confirm that Dennis Williams will become the Silvertips’ full-time general manager.” Williams, who also is Everett’s head coach, had been serving as interim GM since the club parted ways with Garry Davidson.
following the departure of Matt Bardsley, whose last day with them was June 30. He left the Blazers after three seasons as GM and with three years left on his contract. Bardsley and his family have returned to Portland. He now is an amateur scout with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers.
arena, which is located in Westerner Park, was named the Peavey Mart Centrium on Monday. The two parties have agreed on a five-year sponsorship deal. No financial terms were revealed. . . . The Peavey Mart Centrium is to be home to, among other things, part of the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship. . . . Peavey Industries, which has its head office in Red Deer, also becomes an “official agricultural supply partner” to Westerner Park. . . . The Centrium hadn’t had a name sponsor since a contract with Enmax expired a few years ago.
does have a six-game exhibition schedule, including three games in WHL arenas. . . . The Kraken will play its first-ever NHL game in Spokane on Sept. 26 against the Vancouver Canucks. It then will play the Edmonton Oilers on Oct. 1 in Everett, and the Calgary Flames in Kent, Wash., the home of the Seattle Thunderbirds, on Oct. 2. . . . The Kraken will play three road exhibition games — in Edmonton on Sept. 28, in Calgary on Sept. 29 and in Vancouver on Oct. 5. . . . The Kraken will take part in an expansion draft on July 21.
Mitch Peacock, its manager, broadcast and communications, had left the organization. On Friday, the Ice announced that Munz would replace Peacock, thus becoming the team’s play-by-play voice. Among Munz’s responsibilities will be media relations . . . Munz is a former radio voice of the Prince Albert Raiders. He also has done play-by-play for the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets and the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. . . . Munz had joined Golf Manitoba in April as director of communications. He had been with TSN 1290 AM in Winnipeg, but lost his job when Bell Media shuttered the station in February.
picked in the CHL’s 2001 import draft. . . . Chayka, who turns 18 on Aug. 26, got into three games with Belarus at the IIHF U18 World championship in Texas, going 2-1-0, 2.67, .911. . . . In 29 appearances with Team Belarus in a junior league there, he was 3.60, .870. . . . The Raiders didn’t have any imports on their roster in the Regina hub earlier this year. They finished the 2019-20 season with three on their roster — F Daniil Stepanov, now 20, of Belarus; F Aliaksei Protas, now 20, also of Belarus; and F Ivan Kechkin, now 19, of Russia.
Leon Okonkwo Prada, their two selections in the CHL’s 2021 import draft on June 30. . . . From Italy, Segafredo, who won’t turn 17 until Sept. 15, played in Switzerland last season. He had a team-high 52 points, including 25 goals, in 26 games with the ZSC Lions U17 team in 2020-21. He also had a goal and an assist in one game with ZSC’s U20 team, and 10 goals and an assist with the GCK Lions U20 side. . . . Okonkwo Prada, who turns 18 today (Wednesday), was born in Colchester, Great Britain. He played in Sweden in 2020-21, putting up a goal and six assists in eight games with Rögle BK’s U18 team. . . . Each WHL team is allowed to use two import players. Seattle also holds the rights to F Vladimir Alistrov, a 20-year-old from Belarus, having acquired them from the Edmonton Oil Kings on Jan. 25 for D Simon Kubicek, who is from Czech Republic. . . . Alistrov, who had 19 goals and 16 assists in 57 games with the Oil Kings in 2019-20, spent this season in the KHL with Dinamo Minsk. He had a goal and three assists in 38 games, then signed a one-year contract extension on April 30. . . . The Oil Kings announced last week that Kubicek, who will turn 20 on Dec. 19, is committed to play for them in 2021-22.
John, N.B. The QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts and Saint John Sea Dogs both are putting together bids in the hopes of earning hosting rights. Bids are to be in to the CHL by Aug. 23, with a winner to be announced the week of Sept. 6. . . . The Remparts have played host to the four-team tournament in 2003 and 2015; Saint John never has been the host city. . . . The 2022 tournament is scheduled for June 3-12. . . . Due to the pandemic, the Memorial Cup tournament hasn’t been held since 2019. The 2020 tournament was to have been held in Kelowna, with the 2021 tournament in Oshawa or Sault Ste. Marie. Both events were cancelled due to the pandemic.
Wheat Kings on Monday, giving up a conditional ninth-round pick in the WHL draft. Thiessen, who is from Brandon, had three goals in 25 games with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, who had signed him as an undrafted free agent. He later was dealt to the Wheat Kings, for whom he had one goal and nine assists in 31 games over two seasons. . . . Other 2001-born players on the Broncos’ roster that finished the 2020-21 season: D Cayde Augustine, F Aiden Bulych, F Eric Houk, D Alex Moar, F Cole Nagy and G Isaac Poulter. . . . The Wheat Kings still have four 2001-born defencemen on the roster that completed the 2020-21 season: Braden Schneider, who has signed with the New York Rangers, Jonny Lambos, Chad Nychuk and Neithan Salame, as well as forwards Marcus Kallionkieli, who is from Finland, and Ben McCartney. 
TAKING NOTE 