The hockey club announced late Tuesday night that an Ottawa player had tested positive, was experiencing “mild symptoms” and put in isolation. The announcement went on to say all members of the team would remain isolated, as well, while their health was being monitored.
A subsequent statement on Wednesday added more information:
“The Ottawa Senators medical team is actively monitoring players and staff and following all appropriate and professional guidelines to help ensure the health and safety of our employees and the greater community.
“Players are being assessed and tested under the supervision of public health authorities.”
No news is good news. As the time of this writing on Thursday, no further positive tests have been announced.
All players and Senators staff who were on the club’s trip to California from March 6-12 were instructed to self-quarantine, effective last Saturday. The team has assured the greater Ottawa community that the travelling group does not pose a public health risk.
The Senators have not disclosed the name of the player who tested positive, although it is possible he may step forward at some point, as NBA star Kevin Durant did this week. Durant is one of four Brooklyn Nets players who have tested positive for COVID-19. The other three are unnamed. Only one of the four was symptomatic, according to the Nets.
“Everyone be careful,” Durant said. “Take care of yourself and quarantine. We’re going to get through this.”
Why have so many NBA players tested positive (seven, and counting)? In part because so many are being tested. At latest report, five of the seven were asymptomatic, meaning they showed no symptoms of the virus and only discovered they were positive because they were issued a test.
After Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive (following his bad-karma stunt, touching media microphones), several teams that had recently faced the Jazz were also tested: including the Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons, Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder.
It stands to reason that if dozens of NHLers were tested, there would be further positive results. Generally speaking, outside of the Senators’ confirmed case, NHL teams are waiting for players to show symptoms of the virus before administering tests.
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For example, while the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, who recently faced the Senators (March 10, 11), have not indicated they tested their players, they are leaning on the fact that none has exhibited symptoms.
“Players from the Ducks have been under quarantine at their respective in- or off-season homes since the NHL’s suggested guidelines were announced on March 12,” the Ducks said in a statement. “No player in the organization has reported COVID-19 symptoms at this time.”
The Kings released a similar statement.
How did a Senators player contract the virus?
It’s like playing a game of Clue, except this real-life mystery will likely remain a mystery. There are many clues involved, considering the Senators spent nearly a full week in the state of California, which was generating headlines as a virus hot spot even before the Senators boarded their charter plane on March 6.
There were already 20 confirmed cases in Santa Clara County, and health officials there had advised organizations in the area to avoid large public gatherings.
Nevertheless, the San Jose Sharks went ahead with a scheduled game against the Minnesota Wild on March 5 and the Senators game March 7. The Sharks played host to a third game after that warning, March 8 against the Colorado Avalanche.
Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman talk to a lot of people around the hockey world, and then they tell listeners all about what they’ve heard and what they think about it.
The Senators, of course, used the same dressing room occupied by the Wild a couple of days previously. This is where it gets dicey – players, trainers, coaches and staff share a lot of the same confined spaces, unwittingly playing Russian roulette in their surroundings.
There had been reports that in L.A., at the Staples Center, the Senators used the same visitors room as the now virus-laden Brooklyn Nets, who had played the Lakers on March 10 (the Sens faced the Kings on March 11). But in fact, the NBA and NHL have separate, dedicated visitors dressing rooms at the Staples Center. However, as Helene Elliott reported in The L.A Times, the Kings did use the NBA visitors room to conduct post-game interviews following the game against the Senators.
Clearly, viruses can cross paths as easily as these constantly moving professional athletes. They are walking through a minefield of germs. As are all of us when we travel.
To their credit, all NHL teams are in lockdown mode now, and complying with all the best advice and public health practices.
If the Senators or any other club finds another positive case, it will be announced. Until then, we all wait. And hope. We hydrate and isolate. And try not to hyperventilate.
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
