Coming Full Circle

Today is the winter solstice; in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the shortest day and the longest night of the year.  This astronomical phenomenon happens every year.  That regularity reminded me to look back at this day in 2020 to see what was happening in the sports world then; sadly, that retrospective has an eerie angle to it.

Last year on December 21^st, the NHL and the NHLPA had come to an agreement about how and when they would start a long-delayed NHL regular season.  They had a start date and they decided to separate the Canadian and the US teams into separate divisions and that there would not be any “cross-border games” due to the pandemic.

So, what is going on in the NHL on December 21^st of this year?  Well, the league and the players’ union are still dealing with scheduling issues relative to the pandemic.

• The NHL has postponed all cross-border games from last Sunday through Thursday of this week due to travel restrictions.  There are 12 games involved in this postponement action bringing the total number of postponed games in the NHL this season to 39.
• The Detroit Red Wings have had a sharp outbreak of covid-positive tests and the league has shut down that franchise completely through December 26^th.  The facilities are shut, and players have been sent home for the Holidays.
• In a separate – but related – set of negotiations, the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed that NHL players will not take part in the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in February 2022.  In addition to giving the league more flexibility for rescheduling postponed games – the number is likely to grow from the current 39 games – the abstinence from the Olympics offers another potential benefit.  Imagine if a bunch of NHL players went to China and tested positive over there; that could trigger quarantine restrictions imposed by the Chinese government and possibly by the US and/or Canadian governments as the players finally come home.  That could be disastrous for the current NHL season.

Having seen the fact that the NHL was experiencing covid issues similar to ones they had to deal with a year ago, my mind began to think about the other major US sports and what their status is now.  MLB is in a state of blissful ignorance with regard to covid these days.  There is a lockout; there are no team activities; everyone is focused on CBA negotiations or the lack of CBA negotiations.  To the extent that anyone involved with MLB or the MLBPA is concerned about scheduling issues, that concern would be focused on when the next baseball season might start and how many games will it have.  In terms of covid, baseball is unaffected.

The NBA folks are probably nervous today.  There has been an uptick in the number of covid-positive tests for players forcing the postponement of 5 games this week.  The Bulls had a team outbreak and had to postpone two of their games from last week and one report I read said that the Nets currently have 10 players in the league’s “health and safety protocol” including the Nets’ Big Three of Kevin Durant, James Harden and the recently activated and unvaccinated Kyrie Irving.  That information alone would cause concern for the league and the players, but the timing of this increase in positive covid tests comes just as the NBA gets ready for its annual Christmas Day extravaganza.

Christmas Day has become a showcase for the NBA; for many folks, it is a turning point in their sports calendar; that is when the NBA begins to ascend in importance for many folks with 5 games on TV from about noon to midnight in the Eastern Time Zone.  Teams selected to play on Christmas Day are seen as “the chosen ones”.  The NBA does not want to have to postpone any of those 5 games on Christmas Day and TV execs surely do not want that to happen either because those games bring nice ratings to ESPN and ABC; however, with the Nets’ “Big Three” in the protocol along with Giannis, games involving the Nets and/or the Bucks will not be nearly as compelling.  Yes, both the Nets and the Bucks are scheduled for Christmas Day and if there are no “special circumstances” found regarding star players, they will not be active on Christmas Day.

The most obvious way for the NBA to get out of this situation is to reduce the number of covid tests it administers to its players, coaches and staff.  Fewer tests will not mean a thing related to the spread of the virus, but it will trigger fewer players in the protocols and more players on the floor.  I certainly do not advocate this as an appropriate league response to the situation, but I would not be surprised if that idea had not crossed Adam Silver’s and Michelle Roberts’ minds.

And what of the NFL?  Well, last weekend was the first time there were enough players on several teams testing positive that the league had to postpone games by two days.  There will be two games played today – a Tuesday.  That is a significant schedule burp for the NFL.  Moreover, it comes at a time when the NFL has announced that it has indeed cut back on its testing frequency for asymptomatic players.  Moreover, the league is considering the display of symptoms to be necessary for a player to e ineligible to play; that means – potentially – that a covid-positive player could be on the field if he does not have a fever, cough, etc.  Given the nature of football and the amount of “close contact” involved in a football game, it would seem to me that such a situation would be advantageous for viral spread.

Over the past year, we seem to have done what the Earth has done over the past year; we have traversed a large circle and come back to a similar place.  This coronavirus and its multitudinous variants have not been eradicated or even contained.  It appears that the latest variant is more communicable than the original virus but not nearly as deadly.  We understand the means by which we can mitigate the spread of the virus but not prevent that spread.  And all of those bumps in the road along the great circular journey we have taken with the virus has led to a lot of “Covid-fatigue”.  It seems to me that a lot of people are just “tuning out” and taking the stance that they want life to be as it used to be, and they want no more restrictions or CDC recommendations or the like.  That may be a tolerable path for many to follow in a situation where the omicron variant is less deadly than others – – but what about the next mutant strain???

Finally, we have come this full circle full of experience from the journey; so, let me close with this observation by Ambrose Bierce:

“Experience, n:  The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………