Someone Finally Said It

I'll keep beating the drum until the words are finally spoken by those who hold the power, but it seems that one of the more recognizable names in the game of hockey shares a sentiment of mine. As you know, I am entirely in the camp that the NHL needs to forget this dream of finishing the 2019-20 season and start preparing for the 2020-21 NHL season, but Gary Bettman stated on CNN today in an interview with Anderson Cooper that all scenarios are on the table. While that might be true for the NHL brass, it seems that Drew Doughty is standing on the opposite side of the line regarding this whole stoppage.

"Honestly, I don't see how the season is going to return," Doughty said today in a conference call with reporters. "I really don't. We have no idea when this virus is going to be over."

Doughty hit the nail on the head with his statement of not knowing the virus is going to be over, and, frankly, he's right. We don't know enough to make any predictions about anything right now. Network newscasts have been been talking about reaching the peaks in this fight against the coronavirus, but we're literally following the same game plan that the world used in 1918 when dealing with the Spanish flu.

Back then, censors limited the data coming out of various countries in order to maintain morale during World War I. This was a terrible plan as the underlying numbers in places such as Germany, France, the UK, and the USA were much worse than the data was showing. Only neutral Spain's numbers were reported far more accurately, prompting the world to identify it as the epicenter and giving the influenza virus the name of "Spanish flu".

January 1918 is when the first reported cases of Spanish flu were being recorded, not unlike January 2020. By March 1918, outbreaks were being recorded in the United States which seems oddly familiar for some reason. By September 1918, a second wave of the Spanish flu had emerged in the United States, and this wave would be far more deadly as it is recorded to have killed "an estimated 195,000 Americans during October alone".

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

With the all of the talk of restarting the economy and "getting back to normal", we would be wise to err on the side of overcautious here for the sake of everyone. The second and third waves of the Spanish flu were devastating in the number of deaths seen, and there's nowhere near enough data nor study of that data right now for anyone to suggest that we're close to being ready to return to normal.

"Everything just keeps getting delayed even more, like lockdowns and stuff like that," Doughty said today. "People are dying even more every day. So I just don't see how or when we're going to be able to make any type of decision to return to the season."

I don't know if Drew Doughty is any smarter than Gary Bettman or Bill Daly or any of the other NHL officials who are monitoring the coronavirus situation daily. I do know that I share his sentiment in scuttling this season to prepare for the next season whenever that may start. There is absolutely no reason to put the health of everyone involved at risk by playing meaningless games for the sake of pride in saying that there was a Stanley Cup winner in 2019-20. To do so would be inviting the possibility of a localized outbreak once more.

I respect Drew Doughty as a player. He's a solid defenceman who has certainly earned his spot in the upper echelon of great rearguards in the game. Hearing what he had to say today, though, makes me believe he understands this pandemic better than those at the NHL Offices, so maybe it's time to start listening to what the players think about this subject.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!