TORONTO – When the Toronto Raptors landed in Tampa, Fla. on Monday evening, several players and staff members weren’t quite sure where they could go or what they were permitted to do.
Not only were they unfamiliar with the city – their home for training camp, which begins this week, and likely for the duration of the 2020-21 season – but they’ve got to navigate it amid a global pandemic.
Most of them were coming from their off-season homes across the United States, where COVID-19 protocols vary from state to state. Some crossed the border and flew down from Toronto – a city on lockdown, where only grocery stores and essential businesses remain open, where you can order takeout from your favourite restaurant or have food delivered but you can’t dine-in.
What they learned pretty quickly upon arrival is that restrictions in Florida – where positive cases continue to soar – are minimal.
Want to grab a bite to eat? Restaurants are allowed to operate at full capacity. How about nightlife? Bars and clubs are also open, though “limited social distancing protocols” are “encouraged”, according to the city’s official website. Masks are recommended but not mandatory under the state’s Phase 3 guidelines, which have been in place since September 25. Not to worry, though, because “menus, if laminated, should be cleaned after each use.” That’s reassuring. Gyms are open, as are movie theatres.
“People keep asking me, ‘where are you staying? What’s going on? What’s around you?’ And I have no idea,” guard Norman Powell said via videoconference from the team hotel, where Toronto’s players and staff are staying until they get settled in the city and find temporary homes to rent, and located just down the street from Amalie Arena, where the Raptors will play their home games in downtown Tampa.
“[I’m] trying to figure the whole city out, where to go, even what to do in terms of just being able to walk on the beach. Especially the rules and laws here with COVID. You’re so used to what was happening in the bubble, you knew the rules there. Going back [home] to California [during the off-season], you knew the rules there and what was changed, what was open, where you could and can’t eat. Same when I lived in Vegas. Being in Vegas, there’s a little bit more freedom there, but certain things are locked down, things you can’t do. So it’s just picking up the environment that you’re in, and trying to make the best decisions possible.”
The NBA recently issued a 134-page manual detailing its health and safety standards for camp and the upcoming season, though teams didn’t receive it until this past weekend – just a couple days before the Raptors were set to fly south. Once again, protocols will be tight on the league’s watch – masks, frequent sanitization and social distancing, where possible, in arenas and practice facilities. Players and staff will be tested daily, like they were in the bubble.
However, that’s where similarities to the restart end. The NBA reported zero positive tests during a three-month span that saw them finish the regular season and complete the playoffs on the Walt Disney World campus in Orlando this past fall – a remarkable feat, given the circumstances.
In addition to the testing, safety measures on site, and the commitment and sacrifice of thousands involved, the league’s bubble experiment was successful because it was contained, thus minimizing the risk of exposure and outbreak.
What the NBA is hoping to pull off this season – what other leagues have already done, to mixed results – will be far more challenging. This season, all 30 teams will operate out of their home cities, with the lone exception of the Raptors, who couldn’t get the government clearance they needed to play in Canada and will be based in Tampa for the foreseeable future.
Teams will play games in their arenas – some will even host a limited number of fans – and travel around the United States. And while the league and its clubs can strictly enforce the protocols in their buildings, and even encourage their players and employees to follow those same rules after business hours, there’s only so much they can control.
On their own time, each individual will be free to come and go as they please. Ultimately, it will be up to them to make the right decisions – not only for themselves and for the health and safety of their teammates, but also for the sake of the league and for the season.
“There’s certainly more freedom than there was in the bubble, but we’re going to have to use very, very good judgement to keep this moving,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “The responsibility falls on each of us, individually, to make sure we’re following all the protocols. I hope that everybody has their own health and safety [interests] and the health and safety of their family first and foremost as kind of how they’re moving around their day.
“Obviously, [VP of player health and performance] Alex McKechnie and his staff will be giving continual reminders and all that kind of stuff too, but it does place maybe an extra layer of importance or priority that’s different than a normal season. We’re certainly not in a normal season or in normal times, so we’re all going to have to be very vigilant on this aspect.”
When it became clear that playing their home games in Toronto – their stated preference – was unlikely, the Raptors considered multiple contingency options stateside. With the backing of their players, several of whom were consulted in the process, they chose Tampa, in part because of the warm weather and no state income tax. But in doing so they’ve also chosen to work out of a known COVID-19 hotspot.
On Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the Raptors landed in Tampa, Florida became the third U.S. state to surpass one million reported coronavirus cases, joining Texas and California.
For the Raptors and the rest of the NBA to pull this off and get through the planned 72-game schedule, and the playoffs to follow, it will take a buy-in from everybody. From the league’s best players all the way down to the trainers and equipment managers, everybody needs to stay disciplined and commit to following proper health and safety protocols – on, and more importantly, away from the basketball court. If the NBA can take anything away from the other leagues that have attempted something similar, it’s this.
The first few months of the Major League Baseball campaign were mired by multiple outbreaks. Several teams, including the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals were forced to close their facilities and cancel games. It wasn’t until commissioner Rob Manfred reinforced the protocol and threatened to shut down the season that teams, presumably, tightened up and cases started to go down.
It’s been inversed in the National Football League, where cases have skyrocketed as the season’s gone on, culminating in the Ravens-Steelers game – originally scheduled for last Thursday – getting pushed back three times and eventually landing on Wednesday afternoon after more than 14 Baltimore players tested positive throughout the week.
When everybody is doing their part – wearing masks, washing their hands, social distancing and reporting their symptoms, among other preventative measures – then things can go relatively smoothly. But once that commitment slips, even from one or two people, then so do the results, as we’re seeing in the NFL.
All it takes is one player, coach or staff member to go for a meal in crowded restaurant or hang out with friends indoors without wearing a mask. All it takes is one person contracting the virus to put the rest of their team – as well as any other team they’ve played against or been in contact with – at risk.
There are going to be isolated cases – that’s unavoidable outside of a bubble setup. Of the 546 players tested during the initial return-to-market phase, 48 returned positive tests, per an NBA press release on Wednesday. Earlier this week the Warriors announced that they were delaying their first practice after two players tested positive.
The NBA’s health and safety guide covers the protocol for dealing with isolated cases, and what’s required for players who test positive to return to play. That won’t jeopardize the season, it states. What it doesn’t specify is how many cases, or outbreaks, would necessitate another league-wide shut down.
Ensuring that those cases remain manageable will depend on how fast they’re caught and treated, and whether they can be contained before they become outbreaks.
“As most people know, you’re not going to prevent people from contracting the virus with the testing but you are able to contain the spread,” said Toronto general manager Bobby Webster. “The daily testing is something that we’ll do every morning, which is similar to Orlando, but we are out interacting, we are in a major city with exposure risks. But I think that’s [something] we’re all learning to live with. How do you go get a coffee? How do you go to the grocery store? How do you do different things where you’re trying to have some sort of normalcy but reducing the risk for yourself and ultimately reducing the risk for the entire team?”
“During the season [there] might be a couple delayed games or whatever it is, it’s just the nature of the reality that we’re in right now,” said Powell. “But hopefully our team will stay true to [the league’s] protocols and regulations, hold each other accountable, stick to our routines and just get through this as fast and safely as possible.”
The Olympic rings are set up at Trocadero plaza that overlooks the Eiffel Tower in Paris.Michel Euler/The Associated Press
In the middle of a record haul at the Tokyo Olympics, Canada’s women’s swim team had one letdown – the 4×200-metre freestyle relay.
Canada had taken bronze in the event at Rio 2016 and again at the 2019 world aquatics championships. The team looked good for another medal.
On the day of the final, a Chinese team that was not considered a contender surprised everyone, winning in world-record time. Canada came fourth.
A battling result, but still disappointing. It looks a little worse than that now.
Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that nearly half the Chinese swim team failed a drug test seven months before the Tokyo Games. Twenty-three swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, or TMZ.
TMZ is a synthetic substance. You’re not going to pick it up because you’ve chosen the wrong hot-dog vendor.
China was allowed to do its own investigation into the mass positive. That probe determined the athletes had been exposed to TMZ in tainted food at a team hotel. How exactly so many of them ingested it, while others did not, wasn’t explained.
Unusually, no announcement was made about the positive tests, and no one was suspended while the investigation was under way. The World Anti-Doping Agency knew what was going on, but decided the best way to determine if China had done anything wrong was to ask China to look into it. When China gave China the all clear, WADA signed off.
One of those who tested positive was Zhang Yufei. Zhang won three medals in Tokyo, one of them as part of the 4x200m relay team.
The swimming world is now playing doping leapfrog throughout those Games. The Canadian relay team is on a long list of unlucky losers. Had China’s violations stuck, the medal table would look very different.
It would also have pushed a Games that was on the edge closer to the drop. Few in Japan were super stoked about the world dropping by en masse during what would become that country’s first mass COVID wave.
The main reason the Tokyo Games happened was that so much money had been spent, much more was still owed, and insurers were not willing to write down 10 or 15 billion.
Picking a fight with China in that precarious moment could not have seemed like a great idea. Even more precarious – the next Games, to be held six months later in Beijing.
As an event, at absolute best, Beijing 2022 was going to be a very expensive bummer (which it absolutely was). That’s the sort of party that’s easy to call off.
You don’t need to be a Reddit obsessive to see what happened here. The Chinese swim team got caught mid-purge, and the people in charge had to prioritize their response.
Priority No. 1 – the Olympic business.
Priority No. 2 – the Olympic ideals.
They picked money over fairness.
It’s easy to lash them now, so plenty of people are. The head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency called it “a devastating stab in the back of clean athletes.”
(Is it possible to be undevastatingly stabbed in the back?)
The stickiest criticism involves Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva. She also tested positive for trace amounts of TMZ before an Olympics. She also had one of those ‘maybe the dog gave me steroids’-type excuses.
But since everybody hates Russia, Valieva did not get the benefit of an in-house probe. She was dragged upside-down and backward through the global press and stripped of her medals. There’s your fairness.
It’s fitting that WADA take a reputational beating here. That is its most useful function – to absorb stakeholder rage after another own goal has been scored by the Doping Police.
But out in the real world, no one cares. Of course the Olympics is dirty. The Olympics has spent the last half century repeatedly reminding us of that.
Between Games, the Olympics makes news only two ways – ‘Upcoming host city X is having serious second thoughts’ and ‘So-and-so cheated their way to gold.’
These stories have become so numerous that the only people registering them are the ones who make their living in an Olympics-adjacent business, like sports administration or media.
Those people are happy to complain – complaining is good for trade – but they don’t want things to change. Change is dangerous. Who knows where change will land you?
In this specific instance, real change in the form of zero tolerance could have hobbled one Olympics and gotten the next one cancelled. Then what?
You start cancelling Olympics and people learn to live without them. Sponsors find new things to sponsor. Broadcasters move on.
Better to compromise. Chinese swimmers did a little TMZ. So what? Figure skaters, tennis players, breaststrokers – everybody’s doing it nowadays. It’s like weed for the Marx and Engels crowd.
With all that in mind, here’s something you won’t often read in this space – WADA made the right call.
It’s not like it was going to go swanning into Guangdong province in early 2021, right in the teeth of the pandemic, to figure out what was what. The only way to get any sort of answers was to rely on Chinese investigators. How do you know if they’re on the up and up? You don’t. WADA had two choices – take China’s word for it, or go scorched earth right before the two most tenuously assembled Games in history.
The proof that WADA made the correct choice is that those Games happened. Maybe it would make a different call now, and that might be right, too.
As far as fairness goes, it doesn’t belong in this conversation.
If a Belgian or a Tanzanian gets caught cheating, don’t even bother asking for consideration.
An American? Probably not.
An American everyone knows? Maybe.
A lot of Americans everybody knows? Let’s talk.
This can’t be discussed because once that discussion gets going, it points toward the sort of change no current stakeholder want to think about. If someone who tests positive can negotiate their way out of it and fairness is the goal, isn’t it fairer to stop testing altogether?
Was it an alley-oop? A Hail Mary? A Jerry Rice post route? Catch and ReLeaf?
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Whatever it was, it was the goal Toronto Maple Leafs fans were waiting for.
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If the Leafs go on to beat the Boston Bruins and make it out of the first round for the second year in a row, fans will look back at Max Domi’s flip pass and Auston Matthews’ catch and finish as the moment it all became possible.
Matthews’ 70th goal of the season (69+1 if we’re splitting hairs) was maybe his finest.
The play: Incredible. The catch: Immaculate. The finish: Nasty. The timing: Perfect.
Social media had plenty to say about Monday’s game-winning goal, but first let’s listen to calls of the play from every corner of the playoff series:
Chris Cuthbert on Hockey Night in Canada:
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Retiring voice of the Boston Bruins Jack Edwards:
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Of course, nothing can compare to Joe Bowen’s call on Toronto radio. Any Leafs moment isn’t complete until fans hear what the High Priest of Holy Mackinaw said, and he didn’t disappoint:
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It didn’t take long for Matthews’ game-winner to go viral across social media, with fans, media and ex-players weighing in on the incredible goal. The Leafs and Bruins resume their first round series on Wednesday in Toronto at 7 p.m.
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It was a game of big numbers at Rogers Place that featured 82 shots, 72 faceoffs, 112 hits and 11 goals. Connor McDavid scored 5 points, Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard 4 each. Adam Henrique scored his first playoff point in 12 years. And the Edmonton Oilers won the opening game of a playoff series on their home ice for the first time in 12,409 days.
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But win it they did, cruising to a 7-4 win over Los Angeles Kings to establish a 1-0 series lead in the 2024 edition of the seemingly annual opening round series between the two.
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It wasn’t always pretty, but several of the goals sure were. The Oilers held the advantage in play, outshooting the Kings 45-37 with an 18-10 advantage in Grade A Shots as recorded by the Cult of Hockey (running count). 8 of those Grade A shots came on a red-hot powerplay that produced 3 goals in a combined time of 4:50.
#2 Evan Bouchard, 7. Moved the puck well for the most part and had 4 secondary assists to show for it, not to mention a tertiary that doesn’t show up on the scoresheet. But was among the defensive culprits on both LA goals that cut a 4-0 lead in half before the end of the second period. Way more good than bad on the night. Contributions to Grade A Shots (GAS): Even Strength +3/-2, Special Teams +1/-0.
#5 Cody Ceci, 6. Played a rock solid defensive game, landing 5 hits and winning the lion’s share of battles. Victimized on a couple of unlucky goals against in garbage time, and in the spotlight himself on 1 of them when his stick exploded making a routine D-to-D pass after a won neutral zone faceoff. His 19:00 at even strength led the team. GAS: ES +2/-3; ST +1/-0.
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#13 Mattias Janmark, 5. Classic Janmark game in which not a whole lot happened during his 10 minutes of action, pro or con. Tagged with an undeserved -1 on the Ceci-stick-explodes goal. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#14 Mattias Ekholm, 6. Solid with a couple of shaky moments. Made a couple of lunging stops on the same dangerous sequence. His neutral zone turnover led to a Viktor Arvidsson breakaway early in the second, then he was unable to contain Adrian Kempe on the 4-2. Delivered a great stretch pass to Hyman for a breakaway chance. Led the D with 2:00 on the penalty kill. GAS: ES +4/-2; ST 0.
#18 Zach Hyman, 9. All over it from the get-go, driving hard to the net time and again. Scored a goal in each period by materializing in a dangerous spot and converting a McDavid pass from close range. Added a primary assist on Henrique’s goal. Took a goalie interference for another net drive gone wrong. Later drew a call the other way. Hit a post in a scramble. Robbed by Talbot’s best save of the game on a breakaway. Took a knock on the continuation of that play and was in pain, but returned for another shift and appeared to be OK. May have set a record for most hats on the ice for a hat trick. 9 shots on net to lead both teams. Also added 5 hits and was a central figure in the battle all night long. GAS: ES +7/-1; ST+3/-0.
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#19 Adam Henrique, 7. His first playoff game in 6 years and his first playoff win in 12. Won a battle leading to the first Oilers goal, scored the second himself with a strong wrist shot from range, then earned an assist on the third. Made a great aerial deflection of Ceci’s outside shot. Took a penalty. Among those beaten on the first Kings goal. GAS: ES +4/-1; ST +1/-1.
#25 Darnell Nurse, 6. Played a solid 2-way game with 7 shot attempts, 2 blocks, and 6 hits. Won a lot of battles along the way. Pasted Kempe in the early going with a booming open-ice hit. Safe and sound behind his own blueline until the very late going, when a cross-ice pass caught his skate and found the net to make it 6-3. GAS: ES +0/-2; ST 0.
#27 Brett Kulak, 5. Low event game including no goals at either end of the sheet during his 16 minutes. GAS: ES +0/-2; ST 0.
#29 Leon Draisaitl, 8. Nearly wrecked himself on his opening shift when he took a run at a King and missed, but thankfully survived. Did his best work on the powerplay, setting up an RNH tally with a brilliant pass and scoring the winning goal himself with a brilliant shot. Also made a superb pass to RNH on an even-strength 2-on-1 that wasn’t converted. Strong defensively. Drew a penalty. Rock solid on the faceoff dot at 15/24=63%. 3 shots at one end, 2 blocks (!) at the other. GAS: ES =0/-0; ST +5/-0.
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#37 Warren Foegele, 6. Mashed Drew Doughty with an excellent hit in the very early going. Played a simple, solid game. Scored the empty netter that finalized the score line, after first stealing the puck in the neutral zone.
#39 Sam Carrick, 5. Played his first career playoff game at age 32 and got the job done. His line with Holloway and Janmark lost the possession battle but held their own on the scoresheet until the late fluke. He did get tagged with a -1 on the 4-2, but his “mistake” there was to do the job hjje was sent out to do and win a d-zone faceoff. 1 shot, 2 blocks, 4 hits, and 10/18=56% on the dot. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#55 Dylan Holloway, 5. Held his own in his second career playoff game. GAS: +0/-0; ST 0.
#71 Ryan McLeod, 6. Played a fine defensive game between the vets Kane and Perry. 2 takeaways, 2 blocked shots. GAS: ES +2/-0; ST 0.
#73 Vincent Desharnais, 6. Rock of Gibraltar on the blue, with 6 hits and 5 shot blocks. On the receiving end of a nasty low-bridge hit by Trevor Moore that left him in obvious pain as the second period wound down, but returned in the third to finish the job. Best of all, the Oil scored the game winner on the resultant powerplay. GAS: +0/-1; ST 0.
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#74 Stu Skinner, 6. Very good in the first half of the game. Contributed the TSN Turning Point when he got a tiny piece of his pad on Viktor Arvidsson’s breakaway shot, with the Oilers subsequently scoring on the continuation. The game that could have been 2-1, was instead 3-0. The back half of the game went less well with 4 official GA and a fifth which was gloved in and correctly called back after a couple of nervous minutes. Struggled a bit with rebound control. 37 shots, 33 saves, .892 save percentage.
#90 Corey Perry, 5. Put the puck in good places, including on Kane’s stick for a couple of great chances in tight. 3 hits, 2 takeaways. GAS: ES +2/-0; ST 0.
#91 Evander Kane, 6. Was visible throughout, mostly in good ways. Fired 6 shots on net including a couple of powerful wristers. nearly squeezing one through Talbot. Did have a couple of issues suppressing outside shots from the point. Led EDM forwards with 15:45 TOI at even strength. GAS: ES +3/-1.
#93 Ryan Nugent Hopkins, 6. Set up perfectly by Draisaitl for what apepared to be a wide open net, but the puck rolled off his stick. Made up for it a few minutes later with a strong goal mouth finish of another sweet Draisaitl feed. 4 shots, 2 blocks, 2 hits, 1 takeaway, and a team-high 2:04 on the 2-for-2 penalty kill. GAS: ES +0/-0; ST +1/-0.
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#97 Connor McDavid, 9. Became just the 15th player in NHL history with 5 (or more) assists in a playoff game, joining dynasty Oilers Wayne Gretzky (2x), Paul Coffey, Glenn Anderson and 10 others from other teams. 4 of them were primary assists, including all 3 of Hyman’s tallies. Twice McDavid beat defenders with brilliant spin moves before dishing. Threaded a bullet pass through Matt Roy’s skates for Hyman’s hat trick goal. 3 shots, 3 hits, and uncounted passes. GAS: ES +3/-0; ST +6/-0.
STAPLES: Big questions about Nurse-Ceci pairing
STAPLES: Hitting is way up in playoffs. Are Oilers up to it?
McCURDY: Kane, Janmark, Holloway all look good to go for Game One
McCURDY: Oilers vs. Kings anything but a foregone conclusion
STAPLES: Kane, Janmark missing from practice. What are the implications?
STAPLES: Pretty much every NHL commentator is picking Oilers over Kings
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