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| The Acadie-Bathurst Titan celebrate a Memorial Cup win in 2018. |
The satirical media company has to be challenged to come out with stories that are more outrageous than what real life presents.
As life goes on currently in the world, one keeps constantly asking themselves, “Is this real thing?”
The frequency that question keeps getting asked in one’s head seems to increase as the second, minutes and hours swiftly move on.
Late Thursday night or early Friday morning depending on what time zone you live in, news broke that United States President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania tested positive for COVID-19. On Friday, Trump was moved to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., just outside of Washington, D.C.
At some point on Friday, Trump received a dose of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ duel antibody, which is an experimental antibody cocktail.
Since the middle of March, the world has been caught in the grips of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Trump has downplayed the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic for months and hadn’t be taking precautions to avoid getting COVID-19.
Even with all that in mind, it still seemed surreal that that whole COVID-19 situation with Trump was playing out the way it currently is.
You were asking yourself, “Is this actually real?”
While the Trump situation was playing out in the United States, up in Canada the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League kicked off its 2020-21 regular season.
Six games were played in centres in the province of Quebec without fans on Friday night. This is happening at time when the province of Quebec is increasing lockdown measures to combat COVID-19.
On Friday, provincial authorities in Quebec announced the province had 1,052 new cases of COVID-19. On day earlier on Thursday, Quebec officials announced the province had 933 new COVID-19 cases and two deaths due to the virus.
Still, they are playing major junior hockey, which is the most elite of the junior hockey levels.
With all that noted, two QMJHL games were played in the province of New Brunswick on Friday with limited but sizable crowds. As a Friday, New Brunswick reported there were only five active COVID-19 cases in the province.
In Bathurst, N.B., the host Acadie-Bathurst Titan slipped past the Saint John Sea Dogs 4-3 in overtime before 1,372 spectators at the Centre Regional K.C. Irving, which holds 3,524 spectators for hockey.
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| The Oil Kings are second in the CHL Top 10 rankings. |
Oh, the Quebec provincial government is considering subsidizing the 12 QMJHL clubs based in that province with $20-million. Last week, Quebec education minister Isabelle Charest said she would like to see the circuit ban fighting before the province gave any money.
On Wednesday, the QMJHL did roll out tougher rules with regards to fighting. Anyone involved in a fight gets a five-minute major and a 10-minute misconduct as opposed to just the major penalty alone. After accumulating three fights in a season, a player will get a one-game suspension and receive another one-game suspension for each additional fight.
There is still no word if the QMJHL squads received any money from the Quebec government.
Also on the hockey front back on Tuesday, the Spengler Cup hockey tournament, which is held annually in Davos, Switzerland usually from Dec. 26 to 31, was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When you look at all those developments, you ask yourself, “Can this all be happening at close to the same time?”
To add to the craziness of the current time, the Canadian Hockey League announced its pre-season Top 10 rankings. The CHL is the umbrella the three major junior circuits of the WHL, OHL and QMJHL play under.
At the present time, the WHL and OHL aren’t slated to take the ice for regular season action until December.
The Sherbrooke Phoenix of the QMJHL checked in at the top spot. The WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings, Kamloops Blazers and Portland Winterhawks were listed second, sixth and ninth respectively.
The Brandon Wheat Kings and Prince Albert Raiders were honourable mentions. That isn’t bad considering none of those WHL clubs have held a practice for the 2020-21 campaign.
On the statistical front, Worldometer, which keeps really accurate number counts, stated there were 1,033,330 deaths due to COVID-19 in the world this year at the time this post went life. In comparison, Worldometer states there have been 1,271,167 deaths in the world this year due to AIDS/HIV, 1,020,751 deaths due to road traffic accidents, 810,877 suicides, 741,715 deaths due to malaria, 636,778 deaths due to water related diseases, 369,614 deaths due to seasonal flu and 233,724 deaths due to mothers giving birth.
There are still some out there who say as many people die of the seasonal flu as have died of COVID-19, but someone COVID-19 deaths worldwide surpass those of the season flu by over 640,000 so far this year.
Also, most of the world is taking precautions to combat COVID-19 and a death total of over 1-million has still occurred. Who knows what that total would be if there were no precautions noting how easily COVID-19 is transmitted, and the lingering health issues some have continued to have after their battle with COVID-19.
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| The Raiders are an honourable mention in the CHL rankings. |
Overall, the mixed messages that keep coming out from all walks of life in the current world are maddening.
In order to combat a pandemic like COVID-19, you need most of the public to be on the same page.
At the moment, society is not in this together, and these crazy surreal moments that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic are likely destined to continue.
Canada West delays January start decision,
other notes
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| Will Evan Fiala and the Huskies return to action in January 2021? |
Originally, the conference, which plays under the U Sports umbrella, was expecting to announce on Oct. 8 if there will be regular season play in the winter semester starting in early January of 2021. On Friday, the Canada West Conference announced the final decision to play during the winter semester has been pushed back to November 2.
The sports that are looking to resume play in January of 2021 include men’s and women’s basketball, hockey and volleyball along with rugby women’s 7s. Canada West Championships are still planned in the winter semester for men’s and women’s curling, swimming, track and field and wrestling.
All fall team competitions in the Canada West Conference were cancelled in June, while the conference championships for cross-country running and later golf were subsequently cancelled. All the cancellations are due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Canada West Conference golf championships, which were slated to start Friday in Kelowna, B.C., were the last fall sport that got cancelled with that announcement coming down on Sept. 22.
The Canada West Conference included the University of Saskatchewan Huskies program and the University of Regina Athletics program.
- On Tuesday, the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos announced at their annual general meeting that the community owned franchise lost $791,000 for the 2019-20 campaign. Steven Mah of the Southwest Booster has the story on the breakdown of the Broncos losses and that piece can be found by clicking right here.
- On Tuesday, the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors announced at their annual general meeting that the community owned franchise lost $391,299 for the 2019-20 campaign. Randy Palmer of MooseJawToday.com has the story about those losses and that piece can be found by clicking right here.
- On Wednesday, Hockey Edmonton announced Steve Hogle will be that organization’s new general manager. Hogle served as the president of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades from 2013 to 2019. He still serves as an alternate governor for the Blades.
If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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