NHL: No Positive COVID Cases for Seventh Consecutive Week

The National Hockey League zero positive coronavirus cases in the seventh consecutive week. It is the isolated bubble format that has protected the NHL’s players & the staff from coronavirus for the seventh straight week. The bubble format has been pretty successful for the league personnel protecting from the pandemic. On September 14, 2020, the league confirmed that a total of 1,357 coronavirus tests have been administered through the week. There were no positive cases registered from these 1,357 coronavirus test results.

With that, the league has confirmed there would not be any changes in the scheduled Stanley Cup Final. There would not be any hindrance to the scheduled game due to the pandemic. Since the game resumed after the March halt due to the pandemic, NHL officials & other team members have been relocated to Toronto and Edmonton, the temporary hubs for the restart of the game.

The NHL & NHLPA Announcement.

The NHL along with the players' association in a statement announced that the league has, for the seventh consecutive week, registered zero coronavirus cases in the playoff bubble. Between September 6 to September 12, the league tested all the 52 members of the remaining four teams (total of 1,357 members). The NHL Toronto bubble was closed moving the team to Edmonton for the September 6, conference finals.

After the four months of halt, the 24 teams reached the bubbles to resume the game on July 26. In their respective conference finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning was leading the New York Islanders 3-1 and Dallas Stars leading the Golden Knights 3-1. The teams look in a good spirit and are also coming up with the new initiatives in the quest for inclusivity.

NHL’s Work towards Inclusivity.

With the boycott of August, players sent a special message of hope for inclusivity. The prevailing landscape regarding the effects of the pandemic, it looks like the Stanley Cup will be handed over to the winner at the end of September. And, after that, the league will get enough gap with the draft and free agency slated to happen in the early part of October. This gap will get the league to formulate its approach to ramping up ways to promote inclusivity. The league has made a couple of promises in that direction, and it is when it can have it planned.

There was a wave of racism conversation after Mathew Dumba before his play-in tournament took a knee & raised his fist during the national anthem. Days later, play-in tournament, Ryan Reaves, Tyler Seguin, and Robin Lehner kneeled together showing their solidarity for racial justice. In the later part of August, players across the leagues protested the shooting of Jacob Blake by the police in Kenosha. There has been an immensely increased level of awareness in the past few days across NHL & other sports leagues about social injustice & how it should be handled. With more and more players coming forwards, the league has only supported the moment to fight social injustice.

In fact, players from other leagues have been coming from across the leagues in support of Jacob Blake before the NHL came into the picture. The NHL has already been thinking of laying down a plan to work towards inclusivity after the use of racist language that led to the resignation of Bill Peter. In January the league had announced a code of conduct talking about the inclusivity & had launched an executive inclusion council after the death of George Floyd.