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NHL set to resume after 6-day break, eyes new CDC guidance – CTV News

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Tampa Bay Lightning officials pulled a player out of a meeting because he tested positive for the coronavirus and no one in the room flinched.

As Anthony Cirelli went into the now-familiar COVID-19 protocol, the two-time defending champions practiced with their goaltending coach and a emergency backup in net and prepared to play Montreal on Tuesday night in a Stanley Cup Final rematch without either of their NHL goalies or their coach on hand.

“It’s just the norm,” assistant Derek Lalonde said Monday. “Not trying to downplay it, but I just think it’s a reality of today’s world and today’s NHL.”

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Hockey will return Tuesday after the league took an extended holiday break in the hope that virus cases will not continue to disrupt the season. While three more games this week were postponed — bringing the total to 70 this season — the NHL like other leagues will try to power through the latest twist in the pandemic with a possible boost on the way in the form of shorter absences for players and coaches who test positive.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday cut the recommended isolation period from 10 days to five, and other North American professional sports leagues have already moved in that direction. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said, “Obviously it will spur a review of the protocol” currently in place, which includes 10 days away for those who contract the virus and experience symptoms.

While many of the cases across hockey have been asymptomatic or mild, the spread of the highly contagious omicron variant has led to a rash of positive COVID-19 test results across the league’s 32 teams. Dozens more players entered virus protocol Monday, with minor leaguers taking their place and taxi squads added to keep the NHL season going amid concerns about the quality of the on-ice product.

“Unfortunate what’s going on around the league with a lot of teams having to deal with COVID issues right now, including ourselves, but I don’t think a lot is going to change moving forward here for the next couple weeks,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “We do have to get some games in if we can do it safely, and we can do it where teams have adequate players in the lineup.”

Stamkos and his teammates were preparing to play without reigning playoff MVP goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, five other players and coach Jon Cooper. Montreal will also be without several players for the start of a three-game U.S. road trip; back home, Quebec has banned fans and all eyes are on virus restrictions in Canada that could further upend the season for a league with seven teams based north of the border.

The virus continues to play a role on either side of it. Pittsburgh and Washington each added six players to the NHL COVID protocol list, and the Vegas Golden Knights found out they won’t have coach Peter DeBoer behind the bench for their game Tuesday night at Los Angeles.

Washington is set to play again Wednesday against the Nashville Predators, who are dealing with their own virus absences, but the game is scheduled to go on as planned.

“It’s not about who’s out,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “It’s about the players that are in and making sure we’re physically ready to play and mentally ready to play.”

Not every game will be played on time. Chicago’s game at Winnipeg scheduled for Wednesday and a home-and-home series Wednesday and Friday between Dallas and Colorado are the latest to be postponed because of coronavirus concerns.

The province of Manitoba capped ticketed crowds at 250, so any Winnipeg home games for at least the next two weeks would be played with no fans in attendance. Along with needing to find new dates for the games postponed and more sure to come, the league also could shift games in Canada to later in the season with the goal of making sure there’s a crowd in the stands.

As of now, the Winter Classic between St. Louis and Minnesota is still scheduled to be played in front of a crowd of almost 40,000 at Target Field in Minneapolis on Saturday night in keeping with the league’s New Year’s Day tradition.

“We’re just happy to be playing hockey,” Blues defenceman Justin Faulk said. “I don’t want to be sitting at home doing nothing during this time. I think we should be playing.”

In an effort to do just that, the league brought back “taxi squads,” a feature from the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Each team will be able to keep up to six player on the taxi squad and can make more emergency recalls from the minors to make sure there are 18 skaters and two goaltenders available for every game.

“It’s what needed to happen,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “You’re going to have a lot of these issues, so that’s one way to take care of it have enough players around that you can keep playing. I think at the end of the day that’s what we’re trying to do: have a system in place that you can get guys into the lineup quickly.”

The league shut down for the annual Christmas break two days earlier than usual and extended it through Monday given the rapidly growing number COVID-19 cases. Several teams have reported asymptomatic or very mild cases, including 63-year-old Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato, who was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2015.

“Everybody’s asymptomatic, which is great, and, obviously, they’re testing every day, so if they get negative test, they come back in,” Buffalo general manager Kevyn Adams said, referring to Granato and forwards Zemgus Girgensons, Dylan Cozens and Mark Jankowski, who are in virus protocol. “It it is hard when even if you’re asymptomatic and you come back and you’ve been back for a while, you need a little time to get yourself back. But, yeah, so far with the way our staff and players have been asymptomatic across the board.”

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Shane Pinto has a goal, three assists as the Senators roll over the Sabres – Sportsnet.ca

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Here’s what we know about the allegations against Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara

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LOS ANGELES –

Only a week has passed since the Los Angeles Dodgers abruptly fired Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter and constant companion of their new $700 million slugger, Shohei Ohtani.

But the biggest story of baseball’s spring is still murky — and shocking — as the regular season begins in earnest Thursday.

The scandal encompasses gambling, alleged theft, extensive deceit and the breakup of an enduring partnership between the majors’ biggest star and his right-hand man. Investigations are underway by the IRS and Major League Baseball, and Ohtani publicly laid out a version of events Monday that placed the responsibility entirely on Mizuhara.

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Here are the basics as Ohtani and the Dodgers prepare for their home opener against St. Louis on Thursday:

Why was Ippei Mizuhara fired by the Dodgers?

Ohtani claims his close friend repeatedly took money from his accounts to fund his illegal sports gambling habit. Ohtani also says he was completely unaware of the “massive theft,” as his lawyers termed it, until Mizuhara confessed to him and the Dodgers last week in South Korea, where the team opened its regular season against the San Diego Padres.

Mizuhara has given more than one version of his path to this trouble, which was catalyzed by the IRS’ investigation of Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bookmaker. Mizuhara has consistently said he has a gambling addiction, and he abused his close friendship with the Dodgers superstar to feed it.

Did Shohei Ohtani ever bet on sports?

That’s the biggest question to be answered in Major League Baseball’s investigation, and the two-time AL MVP emphatically says he has never gambled on sports or asked anybody to bet on sports for him.

Further, Ohtani said Monday he has never knowingly paid a bookie to cover somebody else’s bets. Mizuhara also said Ohtani does not bet, and Bowyer’s attorney said the same.

Mizuhara told ESPN on March 19 that Ohtani paid his gambling debts at the interpreter’s request, saying the bets were on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL and college football. If that were true, Ohtani could face trouble even if he didn’t make the bets himself — but ESPN said Mizuhara dramatically changed his story the following day, claiming Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts and had not transferred any money to bookmakers.

MLB rules prohibit players and team employees from wagering — even legally — on baseball. They also ban betting on other sports with illegal or offshore bookmakers.

What’s next for Ohtani?

Ohtani has played in every Dodgers game since the story broke, and he is expected to be their designated hitter in most regular-season games this season while baseball’s investigation continues.

Ohtani says his legal team has alerted authorities to the theft by Mizuhara, although his team has repeatedly declined to say which authorities have been told, according to ESPN.

Ohtani’s new interpreter is Will Ireton, a longtime Dodgers employee and fluent Japanese speaker who has filled several jobs with the team in everything from game preparation and analytics to recruiting free-agent pitches. But Ireton won’t be Ohtani’s constant companion, and manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday he’s optimistic that Ohtani will become closer to his teammates without the “buffer” provided for years by Mizuhara.

What don’t we know?

MLB’s investigation of Ohtani’s role in the events could last weeks or months, and it’s unlikely to be publicized until it’s complete. No one outside of Ohtani’s inner circle knows what it will find or how serious any repercussions could be, and nobody outside the circle is making informed speculation about the process.

One major question looms: How did Mizuhara have enough access to Ohtani’s bank accounts to get the alleged millions without Ohtani knowing? Is the slugger overly trusting, or is he wildly negligent in managing his vast fortune, which includes years of lavish endorsement deals in addition to his baseball salaries? Why didn’t the team around him, including his agent, do more to prevent the possibility of the theft he claims?

Finally, where is Mizuhara? Anybody who knows isn’t saying. He was fired in South Korea and apparently didn’t travel home with the Dodgers. Japanese media have visited his home in Southern California to look for him. Although he was born in Japan, Mizuhara’s life is in the U.S. — but his life will never be the same.

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NHL analyst gets absolutely roasted for ‘insanely rich’ take on Zach Hyman

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They say everyone is entitled to their opinion, but when you’re a member of the media and you share a truly awful take, you’re going to get called out for it.

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That’s what happened when NHL analyst/podcast host Andrew Berkshire decided to post a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) mainly attributing Zach Hyman’s success to the fact that he grew up “insanely rich.”

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The post came on the heels of the Oilers winger reaching the 50-goal milestone for the season and was rightly ripped apart by several notable colleagues, former players and fans in general.

In the video, which has been viewed more than 5.4 million times as of Wednesday morning, begins by stating that he has been in the sports media industry professionally since 2012 and that the industry “has to do a better job of telling truthful stories,” before discounting Hyman’s accomplishment.

“The story that’s being sold right now … is that, you know, if you work hard, if you stick to it, you can get there too, 31-year-old guy finally hits the 50-goal mark, harder worker, all that,” Berkshire said.

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“Yeah, great, except you’re missing the part of the story where Zach Hyman grew up insanely rich.”

Berkshire, who works as an analyst and host with the Steve Dangle Podcast Network, then details how Hyman’s parents bought a league to “guarantee him playing time,” and that he did “exclusive training that only a rich person … could afford.”

“This is a person that has had every single possible advantage to get where they are today,” Berkshire continued, before also bringing up the fact that Hyman has been fortunate enough to play on teams and lines with Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid most of his career.

While Berkshire does state that Hyman is a hard worker and brings grit when he plays, he also discounts it almost immediately.

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“Working hard, everybody works hard. You think every NHLer didn’t get there by working hard?” he asks. “Let’s not build this stupid narrative of ‘work hard, you’ll succeed.’ It’s just not true.

“There are people who’ve worked as hard as Zach Hyman their entire lives and never got a sniff of the American Hockey League, let alone the NHL because they didn’t have the advantages he had.”

Former Leafs defenceman turned NHL analyst Carlo Colaiacovo thought the whole take was ridiculous, posting the following: “Let me tell you something Andrew. You can’t buy your way to the NHL. You definitely can’t buy your way to having the career Hyman has had which includes scoring 50. Pretty ridiculous thing to say.”

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Retired NHLer Bobby Ryan was one of the first to weigh in, calling the opinion “purely false.”

“As someone who has maybe lived on both ends of the ‘financial edge’ I can say this is just purely false. Who cares, he accomplished a feat not many do and to downplay the way it’s reported is just wrong. You show up, do the work, good things happen,” Ryan posted on X.

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Jonathan Goodman, who claims he was Hyman’s personal trainer and tasked with getting the budding pro ready for the combine, had a glowing review of his former pupil’s work ethic.

“Yes, he had advantages. His family was wealthy and father obsessed with his success,” he said. “But the dude worked hard. Harder than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

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But, perhaps another former NHLer, Jason Strudwick said it best, replying to the video by asking: “Did Hyman not sign an autograph for you one time?”

 

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