Quote:
Originally Posted by browna
Pretty comprehensive.
A lot of testing.
Why families are allowed in is beyond me though, when things get to the CF and SCF. Hell Sutter took the Flames to a hotel here in town against the Sharks in 2004 to get away from families.
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This is actually a great compromise in many ways. The league is able to limit the number of contacts the players have for the first 5 weeks, which is good for managing the possible infections, but also for managing the resources of the hotels and bubbles. But, as teams begin to be eliminated over a few weeks, most players can return to their families with just a few teams having to remain isolated from their families for a little while longer. Once you reach the conference finals, you're dealing with 4 teams, which means you can easily house the families in the hotels as well and it allows players to resume contact with their families. It would be hard to expect no contact with families for over 2 months, and so the league needs to concede this at some point in the process. You aren't really increasing any risk at that point since the league would be dealing with so many more people at the start of the Return To Play than they would near the end. This was obviously negotiated for the needs of both sides in mind, and I think the timelines, management of resources, and mitigations to risk of infection are all taken into account very well. Pretty smart IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bobbylouie
"The deadline to opt-out will be three days after this return-to-play protocol package is ratified by a vote, likely giving players at least until July 13, when the list of each traveling party is due."
I don't understand this one at all. You basically have to opt out before you get there and see exactly what the set up is for there to be no penalty. So what happens if the day after the deadline there are a bunch of positive tests and you realize this ain't for me and want to opt out. And what is the penalty then? Breach of contract? It almost seems like you're encouraging people to opt early before it's too late.
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They don't need to see the set up, it's laid out very clearly what will occur. If a player has any personal concerns that aren't addressed well by this agreement, they have the option to opt out. If there are a bunch of positive tests, as outlined above, the league or the PA have the option to basically call it quits on the whole thing. That doesn't mean a handful of positive tests would stop play, so a player needs to take that into consideration before agreeing to show up. It's a calculated risk for any player choosing to go forward with this arrangement, but I think it's pretty safe all things considered. Nothing is 100% certain these days, so if a player is still worried about their own health or anything else, simply opt out now and it's no harm, no foul.
However, I think you will only see a handful of players opting out. The hubs they've chosen are good choices for managing community spread, and there's plenty of safety protocols in place to reduce the risk to near zero. I expect this to move forward with little to no problems should all players adhere to the protocols.