OUT OF THE TUNNEL A SEASON IN PERIL
BY: RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF
The emotional rollercoaster CFL fans have had to endure the past few weeks has been unbearable. This week the deadline that the CFL set to work out a deal with the CFLPA for a shortened 2020 season hung like the Sword of Damocles.
The sword continues to hang as the league extended the deadline another week. There are so many things still to overcome but for as negative as we’ve been here on Out of the Tunnel we do have a glimmer of hope that there will be a season and that is courtesy of the perceived success of the NHL, NBA and MLB in handling the pandemic…so far.
We want to see the CFL play this year but not at the expense of the safety of the players, staff and the people of Winnipeg. What has been giving us hope is the process of the three major North American sports that have re-started or are soon to be re-starting.
There is one thing that the three leagues have in common: they are testing a lot. Results from each league are coming out once a week and there have been some successes. Here’s a look at how the three leagues are handling things so far:
Major League Baseball made their return this past weekend to a lot of ratings success. They are the only sport not playing in a exclusive bubble city or cities but instead, it’s a condensed schedule of 60 in-division games with the teams participating in their respective home ballparks.
Except for the Toronto Blue Jays, the Feds still won’t let multiple teams cross the border to play. So from here on in, they will be called the Buffalo Blue Jays. So basically 30 separate traveling bubbles. Like blowing bubbles in a prairie breeze, the teams will travel as a whole confined group from city-to-city.
There is still a risk with the travel to other cities and a handful of players opting out of playing the shortened season. There has been a handful of positive tests but the show must go on.
The National Hockey League will have two separate bubbles for the Eastern and Western Conferences in Edmonton and Toronto.
Players have gathered in their home cities to quarantine and prepare as a group. They are gathering en masse in the two Canadian cities with the season kick-starting next weekend with eight games in two-days.
They had just a pair of positive tests this past week and look like they are set to go for a mad sprint to the Stanley Cup.
The NBA had a pile of positive tests when the 22 teams reported to the NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida. Because of the strict, single-city quarantine bubble they didn’t have a single positive test this past week. They had 346 tests without a single positive result.
The exclusive bubble format looks like it may work the best with the three sports and with the return of the NBA on July 30.
Now to the potential shortened CFL season in Winnipeg.
Having all nine teams converge in one city will be quite the undertaking. American players will be coming from some of the biggest COVID-19 hot spots and will have to isolate for 14-days in their city before training camps can officially begin in Winnipeg.
Nine teams each reporting with 50 to 60 players, 20 football staff and four or five other team support members means almost 800 people will be in Winnipeg for at least nine weeks.
Winnipeg and the Province of Manitoba are doing their best to be prepared for the potential influx of players and the seven-week season plus playoffs.
There are many detractors and there should be because this will be a very risky endeavour and could put the citizens of Winnipeg at risk if not handled properly.
There are still many giant obstacles to overcome for the potential of the shortened season to become reality.
There needs to be some sort of Federal funding and so far this has garnered a giant ‘no’ from Ottawa. The CFLPA and the CFL must agree on a collective bargaining agreement before reporting and after that there will be a rush to see who and who will not report to camp and how this will be handled.
We are 60/40 that this will not happen but the Bubble City announcement is a positive swing in how we have been thinking the past month. Will a season happen? Probably not but we still have a glimmer of hope.
South of the border, the NCAA football season was to begin with games at the end of August but most of those games are non-conference games and have been eliminated by most leagues who are playing exclusively conference games.
Michigan State and Rutgers have both put their entire teams in quarantine because of double-digit positive tests. This will be the biggest issue on the potential for a NCAA football season.
It’s taken some time but now with the clock ticking towards the beginning of the season, there is mad scrambling across the NCAA to begin to adjust for the current explosion of positive COVID-19 tests in some of the biggest football playing states.
This makes travelling from stadium-to-stadium every Saturday the biggest risk of them all especially for players who do not get paid.
Finally, the National Football League.
They have the most money and tools available to make sure everyone can remain as healthy as possible. The NFL is beginning to make plans to have some major adjustments because of the pandemic.
This means drastic changes to practice facilities and the stadiums they will be playing in.
We are 99% sure the NFL will play this season. What it will look like, who knows but when the money involved is in the BILLIONS this is a significant factor as to why they will play.
(RODPEDERSEN.COM STAFF)
