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| A campus rec game at Merlis Belsher Place on March 14. |
Will there be a winter sports season in 2020-21 let alone a
sports season in the summer of 2020?
Of course, UFC and NASCAR have returned to action in North
American. UFC runs in a continuous fashion, while NASCAR resumed its 2020
campaign in May with a very hectic schedule.
Still most sports leagues and organizations in North America
have remained shuttered since a mass wave of shutdowns occurred on March 11 and
12.
For myself, I last attended a live sports event on March 12,
when the Saskatoon Contacts fell 5-3 to the Moose Jaw Warriors in Game 3 of a
best-of-five Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League series at Merlis Belsher
Place. The Warriors swept the series 3-0, but with Hockey Canada cancelling all
its sanctioned activities starting on March 13, the Moose Jaw side would not play
any further games.
That was the last competitive hockey game held at Merlis and
will likely be the last such contest held there for some time. After hosting
University of Saskatchewan campus recreation games on March 14 and 15, Merlis
was closed up.
It now sits as a COVID-19 field hospital in waiting with 250
beds, and that facility is expected to stay that for the foreseeable future
likely up to a year.
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| The Warriors and Contacts go at it in Merlis on March 12. |
On Friday, MLB teams released over 200 minor league players due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the days without sports keep accumulating, one wonders
how long this could possibly go on?
First, I wonder how deep the fear factor regarding COVID-19
pandemic goes and that will affect the return of sports?
HIV/AIDS has been considered a pandemic for decades, but
orders haven’t gone out making it illegal for humans to have sex.
I admit I am not a scientist, but my mind keeps drifting to
two theories about how COVID-19 started.
It seems the largely accepted theory is that COVID-19
mutated naturally before it finally became a virus that could infect humans.
Proponents argue that the virus likely originated in a bat and found its way to
a number of intermediate hosts before jumping to humans. This jump seems to
have occurred in China.
The world has had lots of pandemics arise from developments
in nature, but this is the first one that has caused humans in most areas of
the globe to shutdown all non-essential parts of the economy and activities. There
is a fear factor here, but it doesn’t make all the dots connect.
The other theory is that COVID-19 is a “gain of function”
experiment gone wrong.
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| Facilities like Athletic Park in Medicine Hat, Alta., will sit empty. |
It is viewed this type of research keeps humans one step
ahead of nature. There are critics against this type of research, who often ask
what happens if one of these superbugs escapes the lab?
The Wuhan Institute of Virology lab in the Jiangxia
District, Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province was working on “gain of
function” type experiments. It has strong ties to the Galveston National
Laboratory in the United States, the Centre International de Recherche en
Infectiologie in France and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada.
It is speculated COVID-19 escaped the lab in Wuhan.
While most researchers lean towards the theory of COVID-19
jumping from animals to humans naturally, both theories are just that –
theories. In science terms, they haven’t been proven as laws, so that leads to
questions about them being true.
The theory of the “gain of function” experiment gone wrong
seems to connect the dots better regarding the shutdowns that have occurred
across the world.
You can almost see the question of fear of, “What did we
do?”
Then in the panic of battling the unknown, you shut everything
down.
If the “gain of function” gone wrong theory is true, you
can’t see anyone admitting to it. If that was the truth and it became public,
it would likely cause 10-times more fear than there is now.
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| Mosaic Stadium in Regina will be devoid of action for a while. |
No matter where the fear came from, it is obvious it is
there from medical officials and governments. How they deal with the pandemic
can be widely debated.
As for the sports world, that fear will affect its attempts
to start up again, and most other aspects of society will have to deal with
that fear as well.
Since the shutdowns in North America occurred on March 11
and 12, one constant most governments have done is issued limits on mass
gatherings often to less than 30 people.
In recent days, those limits have been pushed in many places
in the world especially in the United States due to protests against racism
stemming from the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 25.
Floyd, an African-American, died after being arrested by police.
Video has surfaced with Floyd being pinned on the ground
with a police officer identified as Derek Chauvin driving his knee into the
back of Floyd’s neck.
Four officers were fired over the incident including
Chauvin, and Chauvin, who is Caucasian, has been charged with third-degree
murder and second-degree manslaughter over Floyd’s death.
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| The SaskTel Centre has sat unused for a lengthy stretch. |
Also on Sunday, another protest was held against racism in
Montreal, which police later declared as illegal and included acts of violence.
With people wearing protective masks to guard against COVID-19,
one wonders if Canada’s criminal mask law will come into play with the Montreal
protests.
The mask law introduced by the Government of Canada in Bill
C-309 that became law on June 19, 2013 bans the use of wearing masks during a
riot or other unlawful assembly, and those convicted could face up to 10 years
in prison.
Canada’s Criminal Code, Section 351(2) covers “Disguise with
Intent” that makes it an indictable offence to wear a mask or disguise to
commit and indictable offence.
These protest stories have actually pushed COVID-19 coverage
to the back of news reports.
With large gatherings occurring for the sake of
having a protest, it will be interesting to see if that actually pushes the bar
to actually allow mass gatherings in other walks of life or how these events will
affect the interpretation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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| The Canalta Centre sits empty in Medicine Hat, Alta. |
For the sports world, teams and leagues are at the mercy of
medical health officials when it comes to getting going again. I could see the
United States going ahead with sporting events a lot quicker than Canada,
because sports is a billion dollar industry in the United States.
Outside of hockey, Canada just doesn’t have the same attachment
to sport despite having elite athletes on par with those in the United States.
It is possible some sports might get going and others don’t.
Last Thursday to Saturday, the six time defending CJFL
champion Saskatoon Hilltops had a fundraising bottle drive, but they didn’t
canvas neighbourhoods at the advice of health officials. They received items at
three different drop off points, with director and volunteers accepting recyclables
wearing gloves and masks.
Team supporters could arrange for pickup from team
officials, but the recyclables had to be left on the curve or an outside walkway.
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| People in Canada rallied for the Raptors NBA title win in June of 2019. |
When you see medical health officials keep putting up hoops like
this, you wonder how long it will be until sports will comeback in Canada.
One thing sports can do is create unity in communities. Just
remember the Toronto Raptors run to the NBA title a year ago.
If you’ve seen mainstream media news reports regarding
protests over the last few days, society needs a lot of help in the unity
department right now.
Huskies mourn passing of the “Voice of the
Rutherford Rink”
For many, many years Bruce Gordon has been the voice and wit booming around first Rutherford and then MPB. Huskie hockey has truly lost a part of what makes it so special with the passing of Bruce. We will miss him and our thoughts are with his family during this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/qpYGJ1TIvl— USask Huskie Men's Hockey (@HuskiesMHKY) May 31, 2020
He brought part of the charm of the old rink into the new
rink.
When the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey
team is next introduced to the ice for whenever their next home game will be
played during these COVID-19 pandemic times, the “Voice of the Rutherford Rink”
won’t be making that call.
On Friday, Bruce Gordon, who has been the public address
announcer for the Huskies men’s hockey game since 1985, passed away of natural
causes.
Born in 1961, Gordon’s involvement with the Huskies began in 1979, when he
was the team’s radio play-by-play voices as the Dogs surged to prominence in
the era when Dave King was the team’s head coach.
Gordon became the team’s public address announcer in 1985
and also served as the chief of off-ice officials.
With his bilingual humour, he added a flare to Huskies men’s
hockey teams home games that stood the test of time and was unmatched.
When the Huskies men’s and women’s hockey teams left their
old home in the ancient Rutherford Rink for Merlis Belsher Place before the
start of the 2018-19 season, Gordon remained the public address announcer for
the Huskies men’s hockey team. He performed that role for the Huskies for their
only two seasons at Merlis to date before passing away.
In the book “Dogs On Ice: A History of Hockey At the
University of Saskatchewan,” Gordon stated how much the team meant to him.
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| Bruce Gordon’s last game was the Huskies Canada West title win on Feb.29. |
“The Huskies are a class organization, everybody shows
appreciation for the work we do. I love the game, and I love being part of this
organization and its loyalty. I buy into the values that say ‘nobody is going
to outwork is.’
“Ultimately, it’s not what I have done for the program, it is
what the Huskie program has done for me.”
The last game Gordon worked as the Huskies public address
announcer was on February 29, when they downed the University of British
Columbia Thunderbirds 3-1 in Game 2 of the Canada West Championship series
before a record crowd of 2,667 spectators at Merlis. The Huskies won the Canada
West title that night sweeping the best-of-three series 2-0.
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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