What will happen with the Olympics?
With COVID-19 widely spreading due to the new Omicron variant, professional sports leagues have been hit hard in recent weeks as cases have risen. With the 2022 Winter Olympic games set to kick off Feb. 4 and strict quarantine rules in place if an athlete were to test positive, it has raised questions about NHL players’ possible participation.
While players want to make the trip, there certainly are questions and Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron recently spoke about it.
Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy also spoke about the possibility of players heading to the Olympics before the team’s Thursday night tilt with the New York Islanders and discussed what he has heard.
“I’m hearing the players have concerns about quarantine issues if they should test positive over there. I would assume every athlete is on that boat whether you’re a skier, curler or hockey player that quarantining in a foreign country for an amount of time with a foreign government controlling when you can leave would be something a player or any athlete or support staff would have a legitimate concern,” Cassidy said via team-provided audio. “So I think they’d want to get through the more concrete answers.
“I think a playbook came out the other day. I don’t know, I don’t have access to that if it dealt with those issues or not. I’m sure those are questions that people could answer in any country’s Olympic committee. But those would be valid concerns. I hope they get squared away in the near future. I think everybody wants to participate if they go into a healthy environment.”
There still is plenty of time before anyone needs to travel, but hopefully the current COVID-19 trend will reverse course by then.
