Ontario minister standing firm on no hitting as part of OHL return

Ontario’s Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries Lisa MacLeod is standing by her statement that the Ontario Hockey League will need to remove body checking if it plans to play this season.

MacLeod reiterated that point on Friday afternoon while speaking in Toronto.

The Canadian Press is reporting that MacLeod said recent COVID-19 outbreaks with teams in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League had an influence on her decision.

OHL general managers met on Wednesday as the league confirmed details regarding returning to play in the new year.

The league ultimately set a start date of Feb. 4, with training camps opening in late-January.

The potential for playing the season with no body-checking was not discussed at the meeting.

Speaking to reporters in early-October, MacLeod said that “it would be safe to say that body contact, unless it’s incremental, will not be permitted as a result of COVID-19.”

In an interview with SooToday late last week, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas, who spent time in the same role in the OHL with the Soo Greyhounds, was asked to weigh in on the possibility.

“Just for my own affinity to major junior hockey, I certainly hope that we can get back up and running because it’s just huge in the individual communities,” Dubas said. “Being from Sault Ste. Marie and working with the Greyhounds, the importance of the team in the city and the job the team has been able to do with Kyle Raftis and now John Dean with developing players, you hope for the city and for the players who are counting on that for their own personal development, that they can find a way to bring it back.

“I’m also hopeful that it will be back in hockey in its usual form,” Dubas added. “I understand what might be the reasoning behind the no-contact rule and everything to that nature, I sure hope that just the science of the spread of the virus and the fact that these guys are going to be in close quarters with each other any way that the teams can do a good job of monitoring it and preventing any illness from getting inside the clubs and that they can allow the groups to get back to playing as normal.”