VANCOUVER – There could be no more human aspect to the Vancouver Canucks’ entanglement with COVID-19, nor a more immediate reminder of priorities, than defenceman Travis Hamonic being added Thursday to the NHL’s COVID protocol list.
He joined winger Adam Gaudette and an unidentified member of the coaching staff on the team’s COVID list as the NHL announced the postponement of another three games for the Canucks, who were supposed to end a six-day schedule break Wednesday at Rogers Arena against the Calgary Flames.
Other Canucks players will continue to self-isolate and Vancouver will not practise again until at least next Tuesday and won’t play any sooner than next Thursday’s road game against the Flames, the NHL said in a press release.
These are minimum target dates. The Canucks could be shut down longer pending further daily testing for COVID-19 and its variants.
Gaudette was pulled from practice on Tuesday when his Monday test for the coronavirus came back positive 24 hours later. After an expedited round of tests on Wednesday, the league postponed the Canucks-Flames game shortly before puck drop that night.
The addition of Hamonic to the COVID protocol list should frighten any parent.
Playing for the Flames last season, the 30-year-old defenceman from St. Malo, Man., opted out of the summer Stanley Cup tournament after his daughter, Charlie, suffered a serious respiratory illness when she was eight months old.
He explained his decision not to play in this achingly-honest statement in July: “Like every parent, everything we do is to provide and protect our kids and try to take away any suffering they may endure. Last year, we spent the longest, scariest and hardest week of our lives by our daughter’s hospital bedside. We were unsure of what would come next. But with God’s strength, our little girl fought her respiratory virus and recovered during that long week. We were helpless and couldn’t do anything to help her except hold her little hands, kiss her head and pray. We saw what a respiratory virus can do to our healthy little girl. And it’s something no parent wants or should go through. Now, blessed with our second child, a baby boy, the risk of today’s COVID-19 pandemic is a very difficult one to weigh as parents.”
His daughter’s illness in January 2019 came a few months after Hamonic and his wife, Stephanie, partnered the Flames in a charity initiative called Charlie’s Children to provide items like cribs, strollers and car seats to low-income families expecting a baby.
Fearful of bringing COVID-19 into his family, Hamonic chose not to play for the Flames last summer.
He ended his statement with this: “I wish I could lace up my skates and be out there battling, blocking a shot, and helping the team win. But my family has and always will come first. Being my little kids’ dad every day is the most important job I have.”
Hamonic was just 10 years old when he lost his own father.
An unsigned free agent throughout the off-season, Hamonic joined the Canucks in January on a professional tryout and agreed to a one-year contract. And now he has tested positive for COVID-19.
The ordeal he is enduring – and the risk to his family – should provide pause and context to fans who are disappointed or, worse, angry that hockey games are being postponed.
Shortly before news broke Thursday about Hamonic and the Canucks’ schedule, Micaela Gaudette, Adam’s wife, decried on Twitter the abuse her husband has been taking on social media.
“A human being gets sick with a virus we don’t know much about and y’all are angry at him because you can’t watch a hockey game,” she tweeted.
She revealed her husband “isn’t in great shape” but she’s taking care of him.
Naturally, there are questions about the timing of tests and how close the Canucks came to playing a game Wednesday with Hamonic in the lineup.
The Montreal Canadiens, who emerged Tuesday from their own week-long COVID-19 shutdown that included confirmation from general manager Marc Bergevin that winger Joel Armia had contracted one of the highly-transmissible variants, have had same-day test returns all season.
The Canucks and other teams, including the Edmonton Oilers, have contracts with labs to provide test results within 24 hours.
On Wednesday, however, the Canucks worked with LifeLabs to get their tests expedited and the results returned before their game, which resulted in the postponement.
An NHL spokesman told Sportsnet that lab capacities and volume vary by city, but the Canucks have operated entirely with testing protocols and timeframes approved by the league.
When Vancouver players arrived Thursday morning for their daily COVID-19 tests, a drive-through test site had been set up in the underground parkade so that players would not physically enter the arena. Ordinarily, daily testing occurs in a restricted area on the Level-100 concourse.
The Canucks planned to continue expedited testing through Friday.
It is not known which coach is in COVID-19 protocol, but several members of the staff were self-isolating at a nearby hotel in order to avoid contact with their families.
All NHL teams have a contact-tracing officer who works to identify anyone within the organization requiring quarantine due to contact with someone who is COVID-positive. Vancouver Coastal Health, the government authority with jurisdiction over the Canucks, conducts its own contact-tracing investigation on all known cases.
It’s possible news for the Canucks could get worse.
As it stands, the team that had the worst NHL schedule in Canada at the start of this shortened season will now also have one of the worst ones to end it when its final 19 games are further compressed due to this week’s outbreak.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
