Boston.com reported on Wednesday that Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said that “most” hockey teams refused to hand over rosters so that COVID-19 contact tracers could follow up with players and their families. The report goes on to say, “According to Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders, there were even several instances of coaches telling families not to respond to contact tracers.”

Massachusetts Hockey’s statement on the temporary shutdown reads, in part:

While many of the players, families and facilities throughout the state have been following the guidance as expected, there have been situations and areas where the Commonwealth feels compliance with the guidance has not been followed.   Unfortunately, unless we are able to correct these issues, we would anticipate any further shutdown could be significantly longer than the current two weeks. This is related to both the guidance issued as well as cooperation with the contact tracing process. –Massachusetts Hockey

In addition to the previously cited issues, MA HHS Secretary Sudders reportedly said that there were a few circumstances where coaches suggested that a player’s quarantine meant they could still play for a different, non-quarantined team. This allegation was mildly disputed by Mass Hockey President Bob Joyce.

RinkAtlas has previously noted many cases where activity outside of the walls of the arena were contributing factors to COVID-19 outbreaks traced to amateur hockey. We’ve also identified situations where hockey organizations who knew they had COVID-positive members did not follow contact tracing-best practices, and instead relied on the results of rapid COVID tests which are known to under-report positives.

It’s frustrating to see hockey singled out in this fashion. However, there is no excuse for not participating in contact tracing and not following best practices with respect to mask use and social distancing to the extent that is possible in the context of hockey practices and games, and to the extent that is required by state and provincial law.

Jeff Tracy at Axios reports Youth sports remain in a moment of crisis, as the health and financial situations brought on by the pandemic continue wreaking havoc. As evidence, he cites an Aspen Institute survey of more than 1,000 parents with sport-playing kids between ages 6 and 18.

Among the most significant findings of that study:

• 64% cite fear of their child contracting COVID as a barrier to resuming sports.
• 6.4 fewer hours: Kids are spending just 7.2 hours per week playing sports, down from 13.6 before the pandemic.

The kids that are trying to continue to play indoor team sports like ice hockey are doing so in the greatest sustained period of uncertainty in history. Aspen said that 29% of parents said “their kids are simply not interested in sports, up from 19% when they were last asked in June.”

Who can blame the kids for wondering why they should try, if rinks are getting locked down again because parents are getting infected with COVID-19 through their hangout sessions in the arena parking lot during practice?

We hate to single out governors of New England states like Massachusetts and New Hampshire, but blanket orders shutting down all arenas in each state don’t get at the root causes of the small COVID-19 outbreaks that they are trying to tamp down.

We can’t say that we have definitive data as to why these small outbreaks are occurring. But if you look at what’s happening around local ice arenas in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, you’d find:

• Parents and guardians congregating in parking lots for an hour or more at least twice a week, often not social distancing or wearing masks correctly. These parents do so because they are prohibited from staying in the arena during their young hockey player or figure skater’s event.
• Arena safety policies which look good on paper, but are often inconsistently applied. Most arenas are requiring players / skaters to dress at home and only put on and adjust items like skates and helmets inside the arena, which is good. But in your typical local arena, there is not enough staff walking around and politely saying, “hey don’t sit that close to each other”, or “wear your mask while you’re tying your skates”. They also aren’t enforcing the one-way flow of customers so groups going on the ice and off the ice don’t meet, and they aren’t enforcing separate area for tying skates if there is not enough time between sessions to clear the arena.
• If arenas were really worried about enforcing social distancing, they’d do something like expanding the bench areas, so that players and coaches had more room off ice to spread out between shifts of a hockey game.

In terms of things that could really cut down on community spread opportunities at rinks, these New England states would be better off asking the local police to cruise the parking lots of local arenas in the late afternoon, and remind parents not to congregate– or at least to wear masks and separate themselves as much as possible while waiting for their kids who are inside.

On Thursday CNN Health reported Indoor sports potential superspreader events, CDC says, after most ice hockey players in Florida game infected with Covid-19. According to the article:

“One hockey player infected as many as 14 other people at a single indoor ice hockey game last spring, Florida health department officials reported Thursday.”

“That means indoor sports games can turn into superspreader events, the researchers said in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report.” –CNN Health

Source of CNN Health’s Report: A CDC MMWR

This appears to be CNN Health’s first report on COVID-19’s impact on the sport of ice hockey. Apparently all of this stems from a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report called An Outbreak of COVID-19 Associated with a Recreational Hockey Game — Florida, June 2020. This report was contributed by three public health officials at various levels in the State of Florida, and is written in a scientific journal style.

The article references some but not all of the COVID-19 cases associated with hockey that were previously reported on by RinkAtlas:

• Public Health Identifies COVID-19 Cluster Linked to Middletown Sports Complex in NJ
• USPHL Weekend Series in Marietta Georgia Called a “Super-spreader” COVID-19 Event

Hockey May Not Be as Dangerous as the Florida Health Officials Believe

This report and the supporting documents from the CDC should be taken seriously, as it represents anecdotal evidence that can be used to argue that hockey is a dangerous activity from a COVID-19 transmission perspective.

However, they all need to be weighed against published scientific evidence which does not result in the same conclusions. And they need to be understood as the results of one investigation of a COVID-19 outbreak at one arena in Florida.

Another issue is that the MMWR does not sufficiently separate off-ice activity from on-ice. A health official can make the argument that they are inseparable, but the root cause of off-ice activity problems associated with not wearing masks and not social distancing are not problems that are inherent in the sport of ice hockey. These are problems with the structure and content of the off-ice activity.

For instance, banning locker room use and demanding that participants leave the arena with their skates removed and their equipment on could arguably reduce the transmissibility of COVID-19 inside hockey arenas. These are policies that have been adopted by many leagues, teams, and arena management groups.

The questions about these policies are:

1. are they truly effective?
2. are people who participate in hockey as players, coaches, officials, and parents of youth hockey players, doing everything they can to protect themselves?

Thanks to Peter Caggiano for the tip on the CNN Health article.

The Yale Daily News reported yesterday that 18 players for Yale University’s Men’s Hockey Team tested positive for COVID-19 over the past three days. According to the article:

“According to a University-wide email from COVID-19 Coordinator Stephanie Spangler on Thursday afternoon, there have been 12 additional cases among team members. There are now a total of 18 COVID-19 cases stemming from the original cluster — out of the 19 team members currently enrolled and living in New Haven.” –Yale Daily News

The university says that it is making all efforts at contact tracing, directing any people who are identified as close contacts of the infected team members to isolate themselves for two weeks.

This story has developed over the past three or four days as evidenced by a series of tweets from Yale Daily News:

Athletic facilities at Yale, including Ingalls Rink, Payne Whitney Gymnasium, and the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center, have been closed for cleaning until Oct. 19.

It’s hard to imagine that this development will not impact the discussion of when to restart the ECAC Hockey League and NCAA Division I Hockey in general.

Come back to RinkAtlas for more coverage of COVID-19 and the impact on ice hockey and indoor arenas in North America.

The Canadian Press reported yesterday that The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League has suspended play in two of its three divisions until at least Wednesday October 28. The decision to suspend was made on Wednesday by a QMJHL body known as the Assembly of Members. This is likely the equivalent of other leagues’ boards of governors.

According to this report, The Q has two teams with significant COVID-19 exposure: The Blainville-Boisbriand Armada and the Sherbrooke Phoenix had at least 26 positive cases between them after playing a weekend series against each other on October 4-5.

News of the suspension came 10 days after The Province of Quebec suspended team sports and closed sports facilities in Red Zones. Some of the QMJHL teams located in Quebec were not in Red Zones at the time of that announcement.

Update

According to Mark Lidbetter, The Junior Minister for Sports for the Province of Quebec announced C$70 million in aid to sports federations, associations, and teams. The QMJHL will get C$12 million in aid to support league and franchise operations during the lockdown. {Confirmed in Quebec gives $70M boost to sports federations to help offset impacts of pandemic.}

How Other Media Are Reporting This Story

The Suburban, Quebec announces $70 million financial lifeline to sports and recreation, Mark Lidbetter later wrote an article on the topic of the Province of Quebec’s subsidies for the industries affected by the suspension of indoor sports activity. This bill included the subsidy for the QMJHL as discussed above.