The hockey 'bug'

Cute.  But not so cute is what is happening to the world due to the Corona virus, and the sports world- particularly hockey- is not immune.


Those of you who've been with me for a while know that our little family does a yearly international hockey deal, with me, Laurie, KC, and now Misty (inherited from Scrappy) all having a team each in several leagues that we 'follow'.  And just at the most exciting part of that year, most of it has come to a crashing halt.

It started in the Asia League, which fields teams in Japan, Korea, (formerly) China, and the Russian Far East.  There, Laurie's Sakhalin team was just dusting off Misty's team and going to face their version of the Yankees, powerhouse Anyang, in the finals, when the season was shut down at the end of last month.  This will be the second time in our history this happened; my Tohoku was about to face Anyang in the finals in 2011 when the earthquake hit.

But for everyone else, it's been the last two weeks or so.  First to hit the pause button was the Alps League (basically the old Italian Serie A with the Austrian minor league added), because most of the Italian teams, and many of the Austrian ones, were in the crosshairs of the big blowout in Italy.  They suspended things with the intent to revisit the situation this Friday; but Wednesday, they joined a slew of leagues that bagged the whole thing, leaving unfinished seasons and no champions.  Next came the Swiss National League's decision to- at first- play without fans, then suspending, then joining the cancellation crew.


The amusing thing has been, if something in this can be called amusing, what has happened in France.  That league had finished three of the four first round series, with my Rouen, KC's Grenoble, and Misty's Angers having posted 4-0 sweeps.  However, the 4th series, Amiens-Mulhouse, was stopped because the province where Mulhouse was located was one of the 2 hardest hit areas in France (which was still a drop in the bucket compared to Italy, or even the Diamond Princess).  Amiens was up 3 to 2, but the province wasn't letting anyone in or out.  So last Friday it was decided that that series wouldn't be finished, Amiens would be declared the winner, and the second round would start on time.  Imagine my surprise Tuesday when I saw Amiens was playing!  Apparently they found a way to get the two teams together for game 6 and the possible game 7, but once the second round was set, everything would be frozen in place until the okay-to-play word was given.  Which meant Tuesday, the game that wasn't supposed to be played WAS played- and Mulhouse won forcing a game 7- and the game between my and Misty's teams that WAS supposed to be played was not.  Wednesday, the day of the great cancellation wave, Mulhouse won again, 4-2, snatching a Pyrrhic victory from the mouths of Amiens, and now everyone sits back and waits, "realizing there is a risk the remaining playoffs will not be played."

So Wednesday, I cruised the rest of the league sites, and it wasn't pretty.  Today (Wednesday as I type), the Alps League, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Norway shut down their seasons altogether,  and Sweden will play without fans today awaiting a final decision tomorrow.  Oddly enough, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, and the KHL (Russia) don't even have a mention of concerns on their site.  What really hurts fan-wise is that Misty had the German regular season winner (Munich) as well as the winner in Austria (Salzburg), I had the winner in Norway (Stavanger), and Laurie (Zug) and I (Servette) were toe to toe in Switzerland.


The word from the UK?  The league says that while they are following all proper advice, they see no need to change anything as yet.  So with the exceptions of Hungary, Russia, France (suspended for now), the Czech Republic (also suspended for now), Finland, Denmark, and the UK, hockey is dead as a doorknob in Europe.


Leaving the NHL and the Canadian juniors on our schedule, but for how long?  The local Fort Wayne Komets have cancelled autograph sessions, the NCAA has declared March Madness off-limits to fans...  and now we have someone who was at the Home and Garden Show that was infected.  I'd say I'm tempted to move somewhere else, but the last relatively unscathed area (Africa) is starting to get hit.