So Nice I Did It Twice

I was up earlier than I wanted to be today, but it was for a very good reason as I've now had a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Honestly, I've been waiting for this day since I made the appointment weeks ago, and I'm finally glad to have had the injection. While I still have to wait the two-week period for antibodies to build up and give my immune system a chance to incorporate this vaccine into its system, I feel closer to having a somewhat-normal August and beyond. That means I feel safer going into hockey rinks, safer being around my broadcast colleagues, and safer overall just living a regular life day-to-day!

If you're here for hockey chatter today, this is a vaccination PSA once more. I promise there's more hockey tomorrow, but I'm celebrating being so close to freedom once more. Sorry if this upsets your hockey consumption on a Saturday.

Having been back on the ball diamonds this week as both a player and an umpire, I actually encountered a few lost souls who had decided that they were going to face this pandemic unvaccinated for whatever reasons they deemed real. It's a telling sign how people think about those people when you see them sitting by themselves on the bench while the rest of their teammates sit elsewhere. Call it what you want, but no-vaccine prejudice is real at the ball diamonds, and it pleases me a great deal to see these teams passively urging their ill-informed teammates to get vaccinated through their actions.

I know that Valour FC, the Canadian soccer club based here in Winnipeg, allowed fully-vaccinated people back into the stadium to watch games, and there was some whining on social media about how it was "unfair" to those who opted to believe nonsense over science. Spare me your bellyaching over your perceived oppression when we all suffered lockdowns and restrictions with the promise that the world would re-open if we all got vaccinated.

The key word in that last sentence was "we". If you feel differently about vaccines than the majority of people who went and got vaccinated, that's your choice. It's clearly a bad choice when you find out you can't do things that the vaccinated folks are doing, but you were warned long ago that this was going to be a reality. Whining about it on social media and trying to rally the masses to take up your cause seems a little idiotic when you could have been part of the solution by simply following the rules. But that's the choice you made, so you can't be part of "we" when fun things are offered because you chose not to be part of "we".

Can that be fixed? Absolutely, but it requires you to let go of whatever perceived beliefs you think are right and actually look at the science that says vaccines are proven to work. Smallpox, measles, Spanish flu, and polio are all virtually unheard of in the modern world because people went and got vaccinated against these trasmittable diseases long ago so you don't have to deal with them today. That's why vaccines are important - they make life better now and for future generations!

The science is genuine and real: vaccines work. There are no microchips, nanites, nanobots, or any other mechanical devices in the vial. The government doesn't care where you are or what you're doing as long as you're being a law-abiding citizen. Stop with the idiotic reasons that others have led you to believe, and join the majority of the world at the fun events by getting vaccinated.

More than anything, if you want to watch hockey this fall and winter, being vaccinated might be the only way you gain entry into rinks. For me, I want to watch hockey and broadcast hockey, so it was imperative for me to be vaccinated. For you, though, there could be and likely will be restrictions for people who aren't fully vaccinated, so you might as well just save yourself the hassle and get it done.

It's been slightly more than twelve hours now for me, and all I have is a little arm soreness as a side effect. I'm well on my way to having a pile more fun this summer than last summer, and I can't wait for this two-week period to elapse so I can get out and have a blast with friends who I haven't seen in forever.

That's my motivation for getting vaccinated. What's yours?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!