In Canada, Hockey Struggles to Return Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic
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NY Times Hockey
Because of concerns about the coronavirus, two of the three top junior leagues have yet to start their seasons. One of them may be allowed to resume only if it bans body checking. In British Columbia, on Canada’s west coast, hockey referees are wearing masks and waving their hands to flag infractions instead of whistling. In Ontario, to the east, officials are still deciding when teams in the province’s top junior league will return to the ice, but they will be playing a whole new game when they do, with body checking and fighting eliminated in the interest of social distancing.
Like everything else in this uneasy year, hockey has found that its possibilities are only provisional.
You plan for what you think could happen, but then you also realize that you have no idea,” said Cassie Campbell-Pascall, who was the captain of Canada’s Olympic gold-medal teams in 2002 and 2006 and now works as a broadcaster on “Hockey Night in Canada.”
So have questions about how much the game’s traditional demographics and its slow-to-shift attitudes fail to reflect a multicultural, progressive society.
In September, Clark traveled south to Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to drop his 15-year-old son off at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a boarding school renowned for its hockey program.
Like everything else in this uneasy year, hockey has found that its possibilities are only provisional.
You plan for what you think could happen, but then you also realize that you have no idea,” said Cassie Campbell-Pascall, who was the captain of Canada’s Olympic gold-medal teams in 2002 and 2006 and now works as a broadcaster on “Hockey Night in Canada.”
So have questions about how much the game’s traditional demographics and its slow-to-shift attitudes fail to reflect a multicultural, progressive society.
In September, Clark traveled south to Wilcox, Saskatchewan, to drop his 15-year-old son off at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a boarding school renowned for its hockey program.