Sports and The Pandemic

https://twitter.com/emilymkaplan/sta...

About to be a fragile 2 weeks for NHL, as teams open training camps w/o bubble environment. Wild GM Bill Guerin’s message to his team: “Stay home as much as you can, try to stay out of the bars. Just be smart. Not just for us but for the league—we want this to get off the ground”

That does not make me confident that the NHL will not be bringing a bunch of COVID cases North with them.

And Ontario's planning on opening up bars and restaurants quite soon.

jowner wrote:
Roke wrote:

The Premier League's hoping to be able to play at 40% capacity in the fall.

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...

The current plans involve at least a seat between each person, but there are some logistical issues to be worked out.

[...]

Face masks would be mandatory and it is likely there would be some form of electronic ticketing system, so as to also aid ‘track and trace’.

Seems extremely premature imo.

Even with masks and 40%, people go to games to cheer and boo. Actions that mean heavier breathing.

I'm sure the clubs would love to have people back in seats for revenues but I'd hope the government squash this for greater community good. From the games I've attended in Europe the surrounding streets and public transportation are jammed with people also.

It's interesting to read about how many bright people they have working on these sorts of problems, but at a first reaction, trying to put 24k people into a 60k stadium safely seems ... optimistic.

Roke wrote:

https://twitter.com/emilymkaplan/sta...

About to be a fragile 2 weeks for NHL, as teams open training camps w/o bubble environment. Wild GM Bill Guerin’s message to his team: “Stay home as much as you can, try to stay out of the bars. Just be smart. Not just for us but for the league—we want this to get off the ground”

That does not make me confident that the NHL will not be bringing a bunch of COVID cases North with them.

And Ontario's planning on opening up bars and restaurants quite soon.

A bunch of teams are staying at Hotel X which is very close to a popular bar and restaurant district here in Toronto.

I just assumed that once they got here they would be under strict quarantine. Curious what w/o bubble environment means.

An adult with authority needs to speak up and point out that athletes are not special and if anything need extra scrutiny. I hope they treat the hotels as fancy prisons and honestly keep them 100% isolated.

And..... Russell Westbrook tests positive before heading to the Orlando bubble.

How can the NHL possibly expect that to work? Like what could be going through their heads that they think it won't spread with that kind of non-plan?

jowner wrote:

A bunch of teams are staying at Hotel X which is very close to a popular bar and restaurant district here in Toronto.

I just assumed that once they got here they would be under strict quarantine. Curious what w/o bubble environment means.

An adult with authority needs to speak up and point out that athletes are not special and if anything need extra scrutiny. I hope they treat the hotels as fancy prisons and honestly keep them 100% isolated.

As a condition of the NHL playing games the federal government should have required ankle bracelets for everyone involved.

The issue is, as you clamp down on these players freedom more and more, surveillance them 24 hours a day, why do fans think players would go along.

Some will, for.sure. But I expect the number to drop to be significant. I’d opt out before stepping foot in a bubble if I had money to last the rest of my life. But I expect far more to once reality sets in.

The rules players are expected to follow to make it it marginally s after are a list of reasons playing major league sports while an epidemic is raging in your country is dumb.

For one, whole Americans wait more than a week for test results, the leagues gets them for the players in a day, and they test everyone repeatedly. It stupid waste of resources.

Personally, I never, at any point, thought athletes could be trusted to stay safe. And I never thought, at any point, players would accept living conditions in a virtual police state so fans can Female Doggo and moan about effort and focus.

Jayhawker wrote:

The issue is, as you clamp down on these players freedom more and more, surveillance them 24 hours a day, why do fans think players would go along.

Some will, for.sure. But I expect the number to drop to be significant. I’d opt out before stepping foot in a bubble if I had money to last the rest of my life. But I expect far more to once reality sets in.

The rules players are expected to follow to make it it marginally s after are a list of reasons playing major league sports while an epidemic is raging in your country is dumb.

For one, whole Americans wait more than a week for test results, the leagues gets them for the players in a day, and they test everyone repeatedly. It stupid waste of resources.

Personally, I never, at any point, thought athletes could be trusted to stay safe. And I never thought, at any point, players would accept living conditions in a virtual police state so fans can Female Doggo and moan about effort and focus.

That's fair Jayhawker.

If the players and staff were to come into the country and all quarantine for 14-days individually (so they couldn't spread it within the group) I'd had no problem with them then living as the rest of us are, even going to restaurants & barswhen Ontario stupidly opens up.

So many of them coming from a failed state where the virus is out of control, and then having exceptions made for them despite that, really gets my goat.

No provinces have childcare or school plans ready for the fall yet they're bending over backwards for something non-essential in sports and making things riskier with their exemptions.

If I had the chance to go live in a safer bubble at a resort with multiple restaurants, tons of entertainment, beaches and pools, and all the food and drinks I wanted, my family would already be in the car on the way. In their bubble they are probably in one of the safest places in the country right now outside of being a hermit in the woods. If I was a player I'd try see it as a good thing, not a hardship, assuming I could bring my spouse and kids.

Three things.

At least in the outset, families aren’t included. They are leaving their friends and family to do this.

Once families are allowed, you are then trusting every 20something player in the league not your wreck it, not just for you, but for your family.

It’s already a pretty inexcusable amount of privilege that allows players to get near daily tests and results back in a day when shortages are delaying results to well over a week now, and are getting longer as it is a capacity to run tests issue. Adding families then adds that many more tests per athlete.

I think both of those posts are too. It's an amazing amount of privilege, which is why any of us would likely jump at the chance to go there.

The NBA Bubble Life Twitter account had footage of players on a waterslide today and I've never been more jealous about a simple water slide.

Philadelphia firm no on fans for the Phillies and Eagles in 2020.

Like that they are being firm and clear with this.

https://www.espn.com/college-footbal...

ESPN wrote:

LSU coach Ed Orgeron said the country "needs football" during a visit by Vice President Mike Pence Tuesday in Baton Rouge.

Orgeron spoke during a roundtable discussion at Tiger Stadium on reopening Louisiana schools in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

"We need to play. This state needs it; this country needs it," Orgeron said as Pence applauded.

Louisiana's confirmed coronavirus caseload is among the fastest growing per capita across the country, and its infection and hospitalization rates are surging, worrying public health experts in a state that previously seemed to be successfully flattening the curve of infections.

"This [coronavirus] can be handled," Orgeron said.

In June a large number of LSU football players were placed into quarantine in an effort to curtail the spread of the coronavirus, sources confirmed to ESPN.

"I don't think we can take this away from our players, take this away from our state and our country," Orgeron said. "We need football. Football is the lifeblood of our country."

Though the future of the fall season remains unclear, Orgeron did not hedge on his thoughts: ``We have our team back, ready to go. We need football.``

Pence, who is the chairman of the White House coronavirus task force, said the nation is ``in a much better position today to deal with the pandemic.''

LSU visited the White House in January in recognition of its winning the national championship.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Saturday his concern for the football season is "high to very high" and acknowledged, "we are running out of time to correct and get things right," during an interview on Marty & McGee on ESPN Radio. Sankey said a decision on playing this fall will be made in late July.

This motherf*cker, his greed and his profiting off the labor of indentured servants who get paid in store credit while he lives a life of luxury and fame.

f*ck him.

This is exhibit A of why college football is deeply immoral and should be ended as it’s currently structured. Hopefully the pandemic does that.

To me the bigger problem is the Vice President endorsing the message. Football coaches are going to think football is the most important thing in the world, it is expected. The government representative should be the adult in the room.

I would love to see the actual coaches care about the wellbeing of their players as well. I played football at a small college and we could miss practices if a lab or class couldn't be attended at a time other than practice. I've experienced what it's like to play for a coach that has their priorities straight. It can be done and we should absolutely pillory coaches that should know better and don't.

That said, yes, Pence should definitely be the "more adult" one in the room.

LeapingGnome wrote:

To me the bigger problem is the Vice President endorsing the message. Football coaches are going to think football is the most important thing in the world, it is expected. The government representative should be the adult in the room.

*condescending pat on the head*

Oh, bless your heart.

Pence, who is the chairman of the White House coronavirus task force, said the nation is ``in a much better position today to deal with the pandemic.'''

[citation needed]

Yes, seriously that line is a head scratcher.

TORONTO (AP) _ AP source says Blue Jays denied Canadian government approval to play games in Toronto amid pandemic.

https://twitter.com/rgilliescanada/s...

The only sensible choice.

Yup. The Blue Jays players aren’t the risk but MLB’s “plan” is.

The Premier League seems to have sorted things out:

"The Premier League has confirmed there were zero positive results from 2,208 players and club staff in the latest round of coronavirus testing.

The tests were carried out between Monday July 13 and Sunday July 19.

...

It means there have been 20 positive results out of 20,559 tests overall since the operation began as part of the Premier League's Project Restart.

Premier League: Latest coronavirus testing results show zero positives

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

The Premier League seems to have sorted things out:

"The Premier League has confirmed there were zero positive results from 2,208 players and club staff in the latest round of coronavirus testing.

The tests were carried out between Monday July 13 and Sunday July 19.

...

It means there have been 20 positive results out of 20,559 tests overall since the operation began as part of the Premier League's Project Restart.

Premier League: Latest coronavirus testing results show zero positives

Thought I was in the Marble League thread. I was impressed by the balls of someone releasing that someone released a statement saying that zero marbles tested positive for Covid-19.

I'm watching Giants - A's right now and what passes for crowd noise sounds like it was sampled from an NES baseball game.

Rat Boy wrote:

I'm watching Giants - A's right now and what passes for crowd noise sounds like it was sampled from an NES baseball game.

So an improvement!

I mean, if they were smart, they'd play RBI Baseball music throughout the entire game.

Poor Jimmy Key.

Wow, the Pittsburgh Department of Health has rejected the plan for the Blue Jays to play at PNC park. They are still a team without a home.

Three pieces of news today, one not like the others:

1. The NFL and NFLPA have reached an agreement for adjustments to the CBA for the 2020 season, with Goodell announcing that training camps "will begin as scheduled".

2. Michigan State's entire football program is shutting down for 2 weeks following positive COVID tests, with all players told to go into quarantine.

3. 150 prominent medical professionals created an open letter to the nation's leaders, urging them to "shut it down now, and start over", as containment of the virus slips further and further away.

NFL still not living in reality.

Prederick wrote:

College FB is up in the air, but the pro leagues? I'd bet a whole paycheck right now, they're gonna play.

Yep.

In other news:

Chiefs starting right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif to opt out of 2020 NFL season

Given the worldwide sanitary crisis we are currently experiencing, the NFL and the NFLPA have agreed to significant health and safety protocols to protect the players. There is no doubt in my mind the Chiefs’ medical staff have put together a strong plan to minimize the health risks associated with COVID-19 but some risks will remain.

This is one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my life but I must follow my convictions and do what I believe is right for me personally. That is why I have decided to take the Opt Out Option negotiated by the League and the NFLPA and officially opt out of the 2020 NFL season.

Being at the frontline during this offseason has given me a different perspective on this pandemic and the stress it puts on individuals and our healthcare system. I cannot allow myself to potentially transmit the virus in our communities simply to play the sport that I love. If I am to take risks, I will do it caring for patients.

I want to thank everyone in the Kansas City Chiefs organization for their support and understanding.

Stay safe,

Laurent Duvernay Tardif