NHL Temporarily Pauses Games Amid COVID Surge

The National Hockey League temporarily suspended play this week, amid a surge in COVID cases that was already impacting its schedule. The pause began Wednesday, with plans to resume play on December 27. All team facilities will be closed from Wednesday through Saturday as part of the pause, with hopes that it will allow for a complete resumption of play next week.

Prior to the shutdown, 11 teams had seen their activities paused due to COVID positive test results in just a week’s time. Columbus, Montreal, Edmonton, and Ottawa were the final four to be put on pause, joining Calgary, Detroit, Toronto, Colorado, Florida, Nashville, and Boston in the holding pattern before the league wiped the slate clean.

According to reports, only one player in the league is unvaccinated, but there is no mandate on players being required to receive a booster dose of the COVID vaccine, so those figures are unknown. Despite the high vaccination rate, more than 15 percent of the players in the league were in virus protocols as of Monday night.

In total, 50 games have been impacted by COVID-related shutdowns thus far on the season, with the overwhelming majority of those games impacted in the past 10 days. Plans to reschedule the contests have not yet been arranged.

In addition to pausing its schedule for now, the NHL has reportedly decided that its players will not participate in the 2022 Olympics, scheduled to take place in China early next year. Plans had been that league personnel would be eligible to participate in the tournament, but those plans have changed, though no official announcement has yet been made.

NHL Postponed Games – Through December 22, 2021