Gone are the days of bubbles, regional divisions, CPRA lists, and taxi squads, but the NHL won’t be quite back to normal this season. The league will still have a COVID Protocol for the 2021-22 campaign and the details have been released this evening, courtesy of Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
The biggest piece of the new protocol, and one that is sure to cause at least some controversy among players, is a mechanism for suspending those who unvaccinated. With a COVID vaccine now readily available, as opposed to much of last season, those who choose not receive the vaccine will be held to a much higher standard of preventing the spread of the virus and its impact on teammates, personnel, and the NHL product altogether. If an unvaccinated player in unable to participate, they will surrender one day’s pay for each day they miss – essentially an indefinite unpaid suspension. This obviously pertains to a positive test, but more notably it also includes situations in which local, state/provincial, or federal regulations limit those who are unvaccinated. With the NHL split between the U.S. and Canada, who each treat COVID differently, this ensures that the policies and procedures in the locale of each home team are met without any exceptions or special considerations.
With that being said, there are also numerous exceptions to these “suspensions” for unvaccinated players, including those who tested positive in “the course of employment as a hockey player” (determined by a balance of probabilities test). Suspensions will also not arise out of close contact quarantines. Additionally, the league will consider medical and religious exceptions for not receiving the vaccination and those players will not be subject to suspension. This essentially leaves only those who are unvaccinated by choice who may be suspended, and in the event of positive test only if it determined to have occurred via outside contact.
Unvaccinated players must undergo COVID testing daily throughout the season or until they become fully vaccinated. While traveling, they may not enter any venue other than the arena, practice facility, and team hotel, the latter of which comes with other limitations. Unvaccinated players may not have anyone in their hotel room other than fully vaccinated family members and cannot enter any shared hotel spaces, such as pools, gyms, and saunas. They may not eat at restaurants that are open to the public other than those that offer drive-though and curbside pickup and once at the hotel may not leave to get food.
Fully vaccinated players must undergo COVID testing at least every 72 hours to begin the year. Fully vaccinated players who test positive are also not subject to suspension and their absence will be treated as if it is an injury.
Any player who wishes to opt out of the 2021-22 season due to personal health concerns (if unvaccinated) or the health concerns of a family member, must do so by October 1. Their team can then decide to roll over the contract to 2022-23 or instead to terminate. Those who opt out may not participate in any other league or at the Olympics.
As for staff, anyone with direct contact with players or other hockey operations officials must be fully vaccinated. The league is likely to make the same medical and religious exceptions, but otherwise the vaccine is a mandate for staff.
Although there are exceptions to many of these rules, it is clear that the NHL is incentivizing the COVID vaccine by placing heavy limitations on the unvaccinated. After two seasons that were critically impacted by the pandemic, the league wants some normalcy and to have uninterrupted hockey. Their best chances at that result is to have as many players and staff vaccinated as possible. If and when they feel comfortable with the vaccination status of the majority of players or with the spread of the virus, these rules can be subject to change to afford some more flexibility as the season progresses.
Let’s hope they don’t suspend a guy for a false positive…
this could be a “why not just require it” situation or very equally a “lip service” thing. just how liberal are the exemptions? i guess i dont really need to ask because i dont care too much, but it’s nevertheless food got through.
I don’t think they can force them to get it if they dont want it. And even if they could, I don’t think the league would ban what I’m assuming would be about 15-20% of its players.
my point being that if the union is agreeing to policies like this which dont require vaccines, but basically make it unpleasant not to be vaccinated, would they exactly be that opposed to a full mandate? at the very least it’s telling how restrictive these policies are.
If it comes out Jimmy Hayes died from the vaccine, the players won’t be getting it. I’d like to see the real numbers on all of this because no one trusts the fraud media out there.
Is there any reason to believe that?
There are rumors he was vaccinated days before he died. Don’t know how true that is. Doctors can’t figure out how he died apparently. It’s not likely I wouldn’t think, but you never know. Just sad all around regardless
There are rumors, or the anti-vaxxers are saying it without substance to get more people on their side?
Being against this mRNA vax does not make one an “anti-vaxxer”. Those of us against this particluar vax have sound medical reasons for that position.
So you’re ok with the J/J vaccine that doesnt use the mRNA?
(hands 2012orioles a tin-foil hat)
“I don’t trust the 99% of media in the world who can be sued for libel, slander and will suffer professional and business repercussions for lying and who all say the same thing even though the level of coordination needed to tell synced lies would be astounding and would have been revealed a thousand times over in leaked emails, etc. SO…
I ONLY get my “info” from the anonymous social media accounts of people who turn out to be plumbers from Belarus.”
People are swallowing lies from Russian and Chinese bots (who are also trying to sell their own vaccines around the world instead of ours) and dying from it.
PS- “Sad all around” but I’ll still use his death to baselessly advance my world view. Who cares if rumors start to spread and cause his family even more pain, right?
There is no plausible reason for a country to kill, or irreversibly damage their wage-slaves who perpetuate the lives of the rich and the powerful. Thus any vaccine would be intended to keep that population healthy so they can continue to wage-slave.
IF a vaccine were responsible for killing someone, it would be such an outlying example as to be a non-factor. Like dying from an aspirin.
Governments are mandating Covid passports, so it’s just a matter of time unless you are holding out in a forest bunker.
The NHL has to transport players across a country border; provinces and states have different mandates. For instance travel to the maritime provinces requires 14 days of quarantine if not double vaccinated. That wouldn’t work well for an NHL team with unvaccinated staff and players.
Considering this, the current protocols are really lax.
You may want to look at the VAERS reporting site on casualties from this vax. And considering that VAERS has historically only reported about 10% of all incidents on a given vaccine, I would label this as a “non-factor”.
@itsmeheyhi – If I were to take one of the vaccines, it would be the J&J. That being said, none of these vaxxes have gone thru the standard trials and testing that something like this is required to. For that reason alone I wouldn’t take it.
Josh bell: that’s what you concluded from my post? I say there are rumors that he died from the vaccine, then stated I doubt there’s much substance to it, and you end up posting this? Not all of us are political lunatics like yourself.
Correcting disinformation = Lunatic. So be it.
A certain TV host told the story of a guy who died 12 hours after he got vaccinated. 12 hours, can you believe it? He forgot to mention that the guy’s car was hit by a tractor trailer, but you know…just asking questions.
Disinformation (intentional) and misinformation (unintentional, usually regurgitation, but often confusion) is literally (and this word gets over used but I want to stress this…LITERALLY) killing people who would otherwise not die. Which is bad.
Speaking of which…the Pfizer vaccine was fully approved and went through ALL of “the standard trials and testing that something like this is required to.”
What disinformation? That there are rumors? That’s not wrong. I said they are only rumors and probably not even true. Are you saying no one has ever died from the vaccine? That’s totally false. Highly unlikely, like less than 1% but still possible. And yes the media does lie! No shock to me. You’re making points to me that I’m not even arguing. I don’t get where you’re even coming from. I think it’s totally fair to mention the rumors, totally fair to say that if Hayes died from it that nhl players who are probably good friends with the Hayes’ because they are a well known hockey family, would be less inclined to get it. And you blow up and post nonsense to me. You do this all the time too man.
My first response to this is, how’s this vax thing going in Israel? (Sweden is now the second nation to ban travel from Israel).
But if a group of players decide to challange this in court, they’ll have a good chance at winning the case. And I hope that indeed does happen.
wouldn’t this be collectively bargained though?
Yep. Plus they have to follow the local guidelines, wherever that may be. They don’t get an exception just because they are good at sports. They’d just be creating a headache for themselves.
First, this wasn’t collectively bargained in the current CBA, so the league is vulnerable on that front. Secondly, state restrictions on covid are being successfully challanged all across the country, so this could also be challanged as well.
I think they’ll just have to take the hit if it comes to that. There won’t be enough players I don’t think who will be impacted where they can force the league, and the legal work that would have to not only have to be done in different counties, but states, provinces, and countries altogether would take years to fight. I think the small number of players who will be impacted will just have to take this on the chin and be careful when they aren’t around the team. They have the choice to get vaxxed or opt out anyways so it’s not like they don’t have alternatives if it is that big of a problem.
Until they make the vaccine in powder form Kuznetsov refuses to take it. Tony Moderna
I’m going to raise my hand here… why would a player who already has had Covid and recovered need to be vaccinated? All the data out there suggests natural immunity from recovery is as good to 6x better than vaccine immunity. Also with all of the “breakthrough cases” that will continue to rise, is the NHL then going to mandate the booster shots for those already vaccinated? This just doesn’t seem to be very well thought out IMO.
I’m no expert on this but with the vaccine there is an attempt to document the occurrence. With catching Covid I do not believe it is conveniently documented, and thus makes it much more difficult to track. How does on prove they stayed at home with Covid? Or prove they had Covid? Is there another test for that as well?
I do not think the NHL wants to get bogged down in that kind of a mess. Just show them your Covid passport or get suspended without pay.
Testing for natural or T-cell immunity shouldn’t be any harder to do than would continually administering PCR tests to players, would it?
The data suggests vaccine immunity lasts longer than natural immunity. I suggest getting both like I did.
It’s actually pretty inconclusive but with all the breakthroughs and data from other countries it seems recovery is best immunity. Don’t come here with lies
So first you come here with your confident statement, now its inconclusive?
Talk about lies.
Was surprised to see earlier that the NHL is behind most other leagues in vaccination rate. NBA, NFL, WNBA, MLS all over 90%. NHL at 85%. MLB presumably lower or they forgot to list them.
One thing the league needs to figure out…how to time the tests so they don’t have to pull a guy in the middle of a game like happens in baseball. That seems avoidable.
Glad the league is not listening to medical professionals rather than these armchair doctors in comments. This is definitely the best decision for the league for those saying they’re going to get sued … lawyers, judges, and legal experts have repeatedly made it clear that corporations can mandate it if they wish. There’s a reason why a plethora of vaccinations are mandated before you can send your child to public school.
You apparently aren’t aware of all the pending lawsuits filed by unions and private citizens against vaccine mandates. Most threatened vax mandates by corporations haven’t been put into effect yet, so there’s a reason you haven’t seen many rulings on that yet. But there have been court rulings already, such as one ruling against Western Michigan University, who tried to enforce a vax policy on their atheletes.
As for “armchair experts”, I will gladly match up the medical professionals on my side of the issue with the government bureaucrats on your side.
“My side of the issue”. This is the entire ‘discussion’ from all sides.
Governments and corporate money rule the day, and they write the laws that are put into court.
Any legal issues can be quashed in moments.
This is essentially like a war mandate. Good luck reversing it.
We all feel like we have a “side”, enjoy that illusion.
It’d be like our opinions influencing our local team GMs.
is listening to *