Skip to content

Decision to push back OHL regular season not surprising

The league is planning to discuss a new potential start date with government and health officials in the new year
2019-10-04 Soo Greyhounds Stock BC (1)
Soo Greyhounds file photo. Brad Coccimiglio/SooToday

Winmar-Sponsor_2 (1)

With the expectation that American and European players would be arriving over the next two weeks to quarantine prior to beginning play, the Ontario Hockey League announced on Wednesday morning that the regular season has once again been pushed back due to COVID-19.

The provincial lockdown in Ontario, which is set to take effect this weekend, played a role in the decision.

Locally, Soo Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis said Wednesday, it wasn't a decision that surprised many.

“Once we saw the announcement from the provincial government, it was something that you could see coming,” Raftis said. “We weren’t sure if they were going to wait until after the new year to do something with it, but at the same time, hopefully with this lockdown over the next little bit, it helps get some more positivity in sending things in the right direction then we can put a date on this and move forward officially with something.”

In a prepared statement, OHL commissioner David Branch said the league would continue to look at a new potential start date in the new year.

“The league will continue to consult and work closely with governments and health authorities to determine potential start dates in the new year,” Branch said.

“The restrictions both provincially in Ontario as well as nationally with regards to cross-border travel have informed our decision,” Branch added.

The closure of the border between Canada and the United States has been extended until at least Jan. 21, 2021 and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has indicated that the border restrictions could be in place for the long haul.

“Until the virus is significantly more under control everywhere around the world, we’re not going to be releasing the restrictions at the border,” Trudeau said during a press briefing in early December.

With the plan of looking to set a new potential return date in the new year, Raftis said the Greyhounds would be in a position to prepare for training camp with a relatively short turnaround if needed.

“We can be ready,” Raftis said. “Anything within that two weeks just in terms of getting travel organized and having players, whether it’s American players or imports having to quarantine. The plan initially was a lot of them were going to be traveling after World Juniors right to their junior markets. With what’s going on now, it’s tough to do without a date on it. Other than that, training camp numbers are going to be pretty small, so it’s not a matter of drawing anything out. We’ve been ready for a few months now in terms of what we think we’re going to do.”

As news began to surface about the possibility of another delay, Raftis said the toughest part of it was telling the players about the news on Tuesday night.

“They’re gearing up for training camp in a couple weeks and now we have to push that back again,” Raftis said. “For them, it’s a lot of highs and lows.”

In August, the league announced hopes of returning to play on Dec. 1 with a 64-game regular season schedule that would run until the end of April and a playoff that would include 16 teams moving on to the post-season. At the time, the hope was that training camps would start on Nov. 15.

On Oct. 29, the league announced it was once again pushing back the start of the regular season as COVID numbers across the province rose.

At that point, the league announced intention of starting regular season action on Feb. 4 with training camps starting on Jan. 22.

European and American-born players were expected to begin arriving by Jan. 8 as part Canada’s two-week quarantine upon arrival.

Out west, the Western Hockey League, which had planned to open regular season action in early January, announced it was pushing back its targeted start date as well.

In a release, the league cited said that public health restrictions in western Canada, as well as in the pacific northwestern United States where five of the WHL’s teams are located meant that the league was not in a position to open regular season action on Jan. 8 as planned.

“Given the public health restrictions that are currently in effect, we are not in a position to determine a new target date for our season,” WHL commissioner Ron Robison said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to consult with health authorities to determine when it is safe and responsible to get our season started.”

Meanwhile, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, which began regular season play at the beginning of October, announced this week that the league plans to resume play on Jan. 22, 2021 in a bubble market.

The league selected four cities that will play host to games from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24.

The cities will see three teams play a pair of games each over the duration.

The league has also announced that it will have three markets host games in a bubble format from Jan. 29 to Feb. 6.

The QMJHL was forced to use a bubble format earlier this season after some teams were forced to shut down team activities while they were in hot zones in the province of Quebec.