The Canadian on premature vacation

The Canadian started his holiday break earlier than expected.

Simon-Olivier Lorange
Press

The Habs were scheduled to fly to Long Island on Monday morning, where they were to face the Islanders in the evening. He was next supposed to face the New York Rangers on Wednesday and the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.

However, the NHL and the Players’ Association announced in a joint statement that they had drawn an end to these three meetings, as well as all those involving Canadian and American teams from December 20 to 23, because of “travel concerns. cross-border ”. Federal “fluid” restrictions on the movement of travelers between the two countries are being cited.

However, duels between American teams can take place, but no Canadian team will replay before December 27. The Canadian will not return to action until the next day in Tampa, the first stop on a trip that will also take him to Carolina (December 30) and Sunrise (1^er January). If these matches remain on the schedule, of course.

Apart from these postponements, we reiterate the desire of the league and the players to continue the season as planned, while voices were raised for a complete break for the 32 teams. “Despite an increase in positive cases among players, coaches and hockey staff, a low number of cases have resulted in severe symptoms,” the same letter read. The medical experts of the league and the Association have thus determined that a cessation of team activities should be done “on a case-by-case basis”, depending on the size of the outbreaks as well as the pace of the health workforce. available to play matches.

In addition, in light of recent outbreaks, which are causing or will cause the postponement of at least 39 games by Christmas, the league and the Players’ Association say they are “actively” discussing the presence of NHL players at the Games. Beijing Olympics. A decision in this direction should fall “in the next few days”.

Worries

Uncertainty has been mounting for several days across the league due to the explosion in COVID-19 cases. Six teams on the circuit have also announced that they will cease their activities until December 26 or 27. The latest to shut down are the Detroit Red Wings, who confirmed it late Sunday afternoon.

All over the NHL, COVID-19 is wreaking havoc. More than 100 players have now adhered to the circuit protocol which provides for the monitoring of infections and cases under observation.

The Canadian is no exception to the trend, although he is not as affected as some other teams. Back in good health after contracting the virus, Brendan Gallagher and Sami Niku found their teammates on the ice on Sunday after more than two weeks of absence. Arturri Lehkonen and Cédric Paquette, on the other hand, were not there. Lehkonen was officially added to the COVID-19 protocol on Saturday, as was Laurent Dauphin on Sunday, who however trained in the morning. As for Paquette, he was placed in preventive isolation while awaiting the result of a test. The team has yet to provide an update on their status.

Even if Brendan Gallagher hammered that the players want to play the 82 games of the season, he did not hide that the situation raised concerns among the players and that it is present in the conversations between them. No one wanted to be stuck in quarantine in a hotel room on New Year’s Eve.

However, the proximity between New York and Quebec would have allowed a member of the team with COVID-19 to return to the country by car. But Christmas would still have gone by the wayside, since the person should have been placed in isolation upon arrival.

Gallagher is not “afraid”, however. “We’ve been living with this for two years. It shouldn’t affect our zest for life, he said. We all want to spend time with the family. ”

He would have liked, given the resistance of the Omicron variant to double doses of vaccine, the Canadian government to speed up the distribution of a third dose to the population. Because, he recalls, vaccines help slow hospitalizations.

But the worry is not limited to catching the virus. Because there is also, and above all, the very real risk of passing it on to loved ones. Contagion skyrocketed with Omicron.

Several of the players have children. The wives of some of them are pregnant. Chris Wideman has always just had a baby, said Samuel Montembeault. “Guys don’t want to risk bringing back [la COVID] in their family, added the caretaker. At Christmas, it can get out of hand and several people can catch it. ”

Ready to play

At Le Canadien, we were getting ready to play. After Saturday’s training was canceled as a preventive measure, Sunday’s lasted for over an hour. In particular, it allowed players recalled urgently from the Laval Rocket to acclimatize to the habits of the big club.

Samuel Montembeault had been assured that he would play one of the three games of the trip. “If we go, I’m happy,” he said.

“We did what we had to do. There are so many things that are out of our control, you have to be ready to adapt all the time, ”Dominique Ducharme recalled.

The head coach reiterated that the only thing he and his staff could do was reinforce the importance of prevention.

Even if he considered “worrying” to see “what is happening around the world and in sport”, he said he remained “confident” in the NHL to ensure the safety of all its workers.