How Could the Coronavirus affect the Argos and the CFL

[jerrym]

The Ontario Hockey League just cancelled its season because of Covid although the other two major junior leagues continue to operate. However, while the WHL will finish its regular season in May but it will have no playoffs. If the Covid crisis continues in Ontario, it could prevent at least the three Ontario teams from playing at home and if the western provinces don't get things under control, it would make a CFL season problematic. Hopefully governments will be able to introduce measures to get Covid under control.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...tay-home-order

[jerrym]

Four CFL teams now have more than 85% Covid vaccinated but there has already been 30 players who have tested positive.

Through the first five weeks of the CFL season, the league administered approximately 12,500 coronavirus tests to tier one personnel, which includes players, coaches and support staff. Those tests returned a total of 30 positive results. Please note that, on occasion, tests that come back positive may later be determined to be false positives upon re-testing. ...

As of Week 6, four of nine teams have met the 85 percent fully vaccinated milestone. Based on upcoming scheduled vaccination dates, the league anticipates more teams will reach the fully vaccinated mark in the next month. Being fully vaccinated refers to individuals who have had their second dose for a minimum of 14 days.

https://3downnation.com/2021/09/10/c...ion-threshold/

[jerrym]

The CFL may face a problem with unvaccinated players at the end of October when a federal ban on unvaccinated people flying goes into effect.

A federal ban on unvaccinated individuals using planes and trains is coming by the end of October, raising the possibility that unvaccinated players may not be able to play road games beyond that point. All indications are charter flights will not be exempt from the ban, meaning there will be no way for some players to get to some road games this season. That will be less of an issue in the East, where teams can travel to in-division road games by highway. But it’s going to be a huge issue in the West, especially at playoff time when the weather changes, with the season pushed back to a Grey Cup on Dec. 12 in Hamilton.

It’s understood that players who can’t travel to road games aren’t going to be paid. And while teams can’t cut players for not getting vaccinated, it’s easy to see how that could factor into a decision to part with a player – whether the team admits it or not. Simply put, what’s the value of a player who won’t be available for road games during the final stretch of the regular season and playoffs?

The league also must decide how it plans to deal with a potential competitive balance issue where some teams are going to be more affected by the flight ban on unvaccinated individuals than others.

https://www.tsn.ca/naylor-s-kickoff-...erns-1.1686544

[jerrym]

Unlike most other teams the Riders started out allowing unvaccinated people to attend their first four home games but received much criticism for this from some public health officials who predicted that this would lead to a spike in Covid cases that has filled ICU beds. Now Saskatchewan is facing a Covid crisis, whether related to Rider's attendance policies or not. As a result the Riders have now reversed their policy as public and health professional pressure increases on them.

A growing number of CFL teams will require fans to show proof of COVID 19 vaccination, but the Saskatchewan Roughriders won't be one of them. One health policy expert says the Roughriders need to change their position immediately for public safety, but also for the team's own financial interest.

"It's just the sensible thing to do," said Cheryl Camillo of the University of Regina's Johnson-Shoyama graduate school of public policy.

On Monday, the company that owns the Calgary Stampeders announced it's bringing in a COVID-19 vaccination policy for all fans eligible to receive the vaccine, as well as event staff and employees. That leaves only the Roughriders and the Edmonton Elks.

https://ca.style.yahoo.com/saskatche...110000569.html

The Saskatchewan Roughriders will require proof that attendees at home games are fully vaccinated. Fans will need to provide proof of full vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test result to attend home games, the club said in a news release Monday. The Riders are targeting Sept. 17 for proof of vaccination requirements to come into effect.
The Riders are scheduled to host three home games after Sept. 17. The team said the upcoming Labour Day Classic is too soon to implement the new mandate, as many details still need to be sorted out.

https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskatchew...ames-1.5566674

[jerrym]

Because of federal government regulations, unvaccinated CFL players will be ineligible for air and train travel from October 30th onward.

[ArgoZ]

Because of federal government regulations, unvaccinated CFL players will be ineligible for air and train travel from October 30th onward.

There is a transition period which results in the actual regulation taking affect Nov 30, which will likely only affect the Western Final and Grey Cup. The Players Union (as expected) has yet to agree to any vax requirement.

[Mightygoose]

https://www.tsn.ca/ontario-full-capa...ions-1.1704121

No word if this will be in effect for outdoor venues as well. I would like to think it will. How can outdoor events get limited to 75% there is a greater risk of transmission indoors?

[ArgoRavi]

https://www.tsn.ca/ontario-full-capa...ions-1.1704121

No word if this will be in effect for outdoor venues as well. I would like to think it will. How can outdoor events get limited to 75% there is a greater risk of transmission indoors?

We shall see if the Ticats are allowed to have 24k on hand on Monday.

[AngeloV]

Hash dealing Dougie must have got himself a sweet under the table deal

[AngeloV]

We shall see if the Ticats are allowed to have 24k on hand on Monday.

3DN reporting the Ti-Cats can officially play to full capacity starting Monday’s game.

[jerrym]

By wrapping up the season with the Grey Cup on Sunday, the CFL may have dodged a bullet coming from the Omicron variant of Covid-19. ESPN is reporting that 75 players tested positive for Covid on Monday and Tuesday as the much more contagious Omicron spreads rapidly around the world with the UK and much of Europe already in crisis, and warnings from Trudeau about not travelling abroad coming today and the possibility of future measures from the government. The ESPN report noted that at the current rate of spread there will be more Covid infections in the NFL this week than in the first three months of the season. The NFLPA is pushing for reinstituting daily testing.
The CFL doesn't have the resources that the NFL obviously has to deal with an explosion of Covid.

The NFL Players Association on Wednesday renewed its push for daily COVID-19 testing amid an unprecedented surge of infections this week among its members. ...


A total of 75 players returned positive tests Monday and Tuesday, and the rush continued Wednesday around the league ...


At this pace, the league will have more positive player tests this week than it had for the first three months of the regular season (110).

All players, coaches and staff were tested daily during the 2020 season. In 2021, the NFL pulled back that schedule for all vaccinated individuals.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...sting-covid-19

[ArgoRavi]

The CFL sneaked this season in under the wire. To have only one game postponed this season was a remarkable success for the league and one not talked about nearly enough.

[jerrym]

Breaking news: There will be no fans at tonight's Montreal Canadiens versus Philadelphia Flyers game after the Quebec provincial government requested this. Further evidence that as an gate receipts driven league, the CFL was lucky to have just wrapped up its season.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article...s-game-flyers/

[Will]

That's OK, I think the people of Montreal are grateful for not having to watch their abomination of a hockey team in person.

[Argo57]

That's OK, I think the people of Montreal are grateful for not having to watch their abomination of a hockey team in person.

Real shame, hate seeing the Canadiens struggle.😂

[jerrym]

Saskatchewan GM Jeremy O'Day says the team will only sign vaccinated players. As ArgoRavi said the entire CFL should do same.

[Will]

Real shame, hate seeing the Canadiens struggle.

Seeing the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens at the bottom of the eastern conference standings makes me pleased!

[jerrym]

Every day it seems it seems increasingly lucky that the CFL season ended just before Omicron hit sports with its full force.

Twenty-one months later, here we go again: Once more, COVID chaos has descended upon the world of sports. And once more, sports leagues are foreshadowing our pandemic future. In just the past two weeks, hundreds of professional athletes in the NFL, NBA, NHL, and English Premier League have tested positive for the virus. Outbreaks have left some teams with so few healthy players that they’ve been unable to take the field (or court, or ice). Dozens of games have been postponed. Of the 10 Premier League matches scheduled for this past weekend, only four were played. And tonight, the NHL announced it would temporarily suspend its season from Wednesday until at least December 27.

At times the situation has verged on farce. Today the NFL’s Cleveland Browns suited up for their game against the Las Vegas Raiders without their starting quarterback, backup quarterback, or head coach. A cornerback for the Cincinnati Bengals has been added to the league’s COVID list twice in the space of five weeks. With nearly half their roster subject to the NBA’s COVID protocols, the Brooklyn Nets found themselves in such dire straits that they recalled exiled all-star Kyrie Irving, who has been sitting the season out—and forgoing nearly half his $35 million salary—because he refuses to comply with New York City’s vaccine mandate. The team announced Irving’s return as a part-time player on Friday … only to lose him to COVID protocols the next day.

What makes these outbreaks all the more worrisome is that they’re tearing through some of the healthiest, most closely monitored, and most highly vaccinated communities in the country, if not the world. The NHL has a vaccination rate north of 99 percent; the NBA’s stands at 97 percent; and the NFL trails just behind, at a little less than 95 percent vaccinated. With all that immunity, seasonal patterns alone are unlikely to explain the recent outbreaks, Nita Bharti, an epidemiologist at Penn State University, told me: “It has to be some element of immune escape, which gives us Omicron.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...fl-nba/621079/

[jerrym]

To avoid losing all their QBs to Covid, as happened last year, the Denver Broncos have designated Brett Rypien, who is Canadian by parentage, their quarantined QB who does interact with any other players or personnel in case Covid strikes all their QBs again. Could this happen next year in the CFL?

Last season during Week 12, all of the Broncos quarterbacks were ruled out due to the NFL’s virus protocols for Denver’s Sunday, November 29 game against the New Orleans Saints.

Jeff Driskel tested positive for COVID-19 while Drew Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles were found to have been close contacts and maskless near the confirmed case. Receiver Kendall Hinton was activated from the practice roster and he completed 1-of-9 passes for 13 yards with two interceptions in a 31-3 loss.

To avoid being without a QB again, Fangio has designated Rypien as the quarantined quarterback as the highly transmissive Omicron variant spreads throughout the United States and around the world.

“He was not in the meetings, he was in virtual meetings. And when he was out on the field, he was under strict orders to not be near anybody,” Fangio said.

Rypien started one game for the Broncos in 2020, throwing for 242 yards, two touchdowns, and three interceptions in a 37-28 victory over the New York Jets. He has been with the team for three seasons after signing with Denver as an undrafted free agent in 2019 and earned approximately $2 million so far.

https://3downnation.com/2021/12/17/d...d-quarterback/

[jerrym]

The NHL has cancelled cross-border games because of Omicron through the Christmas break while there is increasing worry in the NBA about games during the holidays and later.

As the latest variant of coronavirus, omicron, makes its presence felt throughout the NBA, some have begun to wonder: are future games, including the Christmas slate, likely to be canceled? ...


“I’ve been getting calls from our players all day — ‘Michele, are they going to cancel Christmas (games)?,’” National Basketball Players Association Executive Director Michele Roberts said Sunday.


But an equally big issue in this league, now, is not the swath of the virus’ next cut through the league, which everyone involved expects to worsen into January.

https://www.blazersedge.com/2021/12/...on-coronavirus