friday, march 13 , 2020. the washington post eZ sU D5
BY SAMANTHA PELLThe NHL suspended its season
indefinitely Thursday in response
to the coronavirus, becoming the
latest North American profes-
sional sports league to alter its
operations in response to con-
cerns about the outbreak.
The NHL announcement,
which characterized the move as
a “pause” before the league hopes
to resume in the future, came
after the NHL Board of Governors
held a conference call early
Thursday afternoon and followed
similar actions taken by other
leagues.
The NBA suspended its season
indefinitely Wednesday night af-
ter a player from the Utah Jazz
tested positive for the coronavi-
rus. Less than 12 hours later, a
second Jazz player also tested
positive. mLS announced Thurs-
day it would suspend matches
amid the coronavirus crisis and
planned to reschedule postponed
games on the back end of the
season.
“our goal is to resume play as
soon as it is appropriate and pru-
dent, so that we will be able to
complete the season and award
the Stanley Cup,” Commissioner
Gary Bettman said in a statement.
“Until then, we thank NHL fans
for your patience and hope you
stay healthy.”
Bettman stated the league will
continue to monitor all the appro-
priate medical advice, and it will
encourage players and other
members of the NHL community
to take all reasonable precau-
tions, including self-quarantine
when appropriate.
“The NHL has been attempting
to follow the mandates of health
experts and local authorities
while preparing for any possible
developments without taking
premature or unnecessary mea-
sures,” Bettman said. “However,
following last night’s n ews that an
NBA player has tested positive for
coronavirus — and given that our
leagues share so many facilities
and locker rooms and it now
seems likely that some member of
the NHL community would test
positive at some point — it is no
longer appropriate to try to con-
tinue to play games at this time.”
The NHL Players’ Association
also released a statement shortly
after the temporary postpone-
ment of the remainder of the
season, saying the decision to sus-
pend play because of the corona-
virus pandemic was an “appropri-
ate course of action at this time.... The players are looking for-
ward to the opportunity to re-
sume play in front of hockey fans
everywhere.”
Earlier Thursday morning, the
NHL, with 31 franchises in the
United States and Canada, was
preparing for a stoppage, an-
nouncing that “given the uncer-
tainty regarding next steps re-
garding the coronavirus,” teams
were being advised not to conduct
morning skates, practices or team
meetings.
All morning skates in prepara-
tion for 10 games scheduled for
Thursday night were promptly
called off.The NHL was less than a month
from the start of its postseason.
The league has 189 games remain-
ing, with the regular season origi-
nally slated to end April 4.
“I think we all believe that the
health and well-being of every
individual person has to be the
priority when decisions like this
are made,” Boston Bruins General
manager Don Sweeney said in a
statement. “... Hopefully we are
able to resume playing at some
point and the pursuit of the Stan-
ley Cup is realized and it becomes
a small part of the story.on Wednesday night, after the
news of the NBA’s suspension of
play because the Jazz’s rudy Gob-
ert tested positive for the corona-
virus, the NHL stated it would not
immediately suspend its season,
releasing a statement saying it
would continue to consult with
medical experts and evaluate its
options. NHL games continued
Wednesday night without disrup-
tion.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Co-
lumbus Blue Jackets and San Jose
Sharks both announced they
would play home games withoutfans in attendance after their re-
spective state and local govern-
ments declared that mass gather-
ings would be banned because of
coronavirus concerns.
As of Thursday morning, the
Washington Capitals remained
slated to play their scheduled
game against the Detroit red
Wings on Thursday night at C api-
tal one Arena even though the
D.C. government urged the can-
cellation of all nonessential mass
gatherings through the end of the
month because of the coronavi-
rus. That included conferences,
conventions and entertainment
events drawing more than
1,000 people.
meanwhile, the Washington
Wizards, who share space at C api-
tal one Arena with the Capitals,
announced Thursday morning
that players and team personnel
had been told to self-quarantine
as the NBA coronavirus scare con-
tinued. Players, coaches and staff-
ers who “exhibit or develop flu-
like symptoms will be tested” f or
the coronavirus, the team’s state-
ment read.
The Capitals issued their own
statement later Thursday, saying
the team “will continue to closely
monitor the health of players,
coaches and hockey operations
staff. Those who exhibit illness
symptoms will be evaluated by
medical personnel and tested
when necessary, per CDC guide-
lines.”
Capitals forward Lars Eller,
who is from Denmark, talked af-
ter Wednesday’s practice about
how the coronavirus is resonating
both in the United States and with
friends and family abroad.
“It’s very new to everybody,”
Eller said. “Nobody’s really expe-
rienced something like this in our
lifetime, so even the people mak-
ing the rules for us have not been
through something like this. So
it’s a very fluid situation that
looks like we weren’t very well
prepared for, so whatever’s going
to happen is going to happen.”
[email protected]NHL suspends season with goal to resume play
Patrick smith/agence France-Presse/getty images
The Washington Capitals won’t play any games at Capital One arena for the foreseeable future in response to the coronavirus outbreak.back playing in the short term. As
a society, we won’t be willing to
take the authoritarian steps that
China took to slow the transmis-
sion rate. This could be a three- to
five-month process, and that
could mean we are looking at
relaunching n ext season.”
The executive added that there
is even a “slim” chance that the
start of the 2020-21 season could
be impacted.
“If it’s not safe to play games
today,” another high-ranking ex-
ecutive added, “why would it be
safe in two months when all the
charts say [the spread] will be
much w orse?”
Dallas mavericks owner mark
Cuban said he wasn’t r eady to give
up on the season yet.
“I don’t know, but I hope so,”
Cuban said. “[resuming the sea-
son] certainly hasn’t been ruled
out, but there’s no certainty to
anything r ight now.”
multiple team representatives
said their players would continue
to practice individually in the
coming weeks as they await fur-
ther guidance from the league of-
fice. But f ears lingered.
“In my opinion, [Gobert and
mitchell] aren’t the only two guys
in the N BA w ith coronavirus,” one
agent said. “They’re just the only
two who have tested positive so
far.”
As NBA teams wait to see how
the schedule suspension shakes
out, they spent Thursday juggling
a variety of tasks. five teams that
recently faced the Jazz were ad-
vised to self-quarantine.
“We had a team meeting earlier
this week where we essentially
tried to scare the players s---less,”
one executive said. “It worked.
They were pretty scared when
they [heard about Gobert], but
they understood what it meant
and that it could happen to any-
one.”
on the business side, execu-
tives were bracing for a financial
hit to the NBA in excess of
$100 million, given that small-
market teams clear more than
$1 million in revenue for every
home game and prestige organi-
zations, such as the Golden State
Warriors, can top $3 million.
Te am executives were going
through the process of contacting
television and radio partners, as
well as other sponsors, to begin
conversations about how those re-
lationships would proceed during
the unprecedented midseason
shutdown.
[email protected]candace Buckner in Washington
contributed to this report.utive said. “ The Pelicans s houldn’t
have had to push so hard to avoid
that game.”
At the s ame time, another team
executive argued that the NBA’s
coronavirus protocols prevented a
wider spread. If Gobert hadn’t
been tested, he could have played
Wednesday and in future games,
exposing additional players and
staffers. And if the NBA hadn’t
mandated testing procedures in
an earlier communication with
teams, the coronavirus tests and
medical personnel needed to test
58 people in oklahoma City on
Wednesday night might not have
been readily available.
“If that situation had played out
[in our arena], we would have
been ready,” the executive said.
“But only because the l eague man-
dated that we have that plan in
place a few days earlier.”
NBA teams quickly turned their
attention Thursday to the sched-
ule suspension, which the NBA
announced would take place “un-
til further notice.”
owners requested that Silver
reassess the suspended schedule
in 30 days with some holding out
hope that a delayed schedule
could be pushed deeper into the
summer, past the season’s typical
mid-June conclusion. Silver said
Thursday that the postseason
could be salvaged even with a
six-week suspension of the sched-
ule by playing into late July, con-
ceding that it was “possible” the
season and postseason would be
canceled entirely.
“What we determined today is
that this hiatus will most likely be
at l east 30 days,” S ilver later said in
an interview with TNT on Thurs-
day. “We don’t know enough to be
more specific than that. We want
to give that direction to our teams
and fans. Is there a protocol with
or without fans that we can re-
sume play? What makes sense
here without compromising any-
one’s s afety? It’s t oo early to tell.”
But in conversations with team
executives Thursday, t here was l it-
tle hope of an immediate resolu-
tion b ecause of the high likelihood
that coronavirus cases increase
exponentially in the coming
weeks.
“I’ve seen models that are super
scary,” one executive said. “There
could be 70,000 cases in one city
alone within six weeks. our deci-
sions have to be driven by science
and the n umbers, and o ur priority
has to be safety. I would love for
this to slow down and we can play
a truncated regular season and
playoffs, but it just seems unfeasi-
ble.
“I don’t u nderstand how we are“If there’s any positive to this, it’s
that when famous people [are in-
volved], it gets people to pay atten-
tion.”
Gobert, the first of two NBA
players to test positive for the
coronavirus, was caught on video
monday touching the micro-
phones and recording devices
during a group interview, appar-
ently to mock t he league’s d ecision
to restrict reporters from the l ock-
er room in response to the virus.
He a pologized Thursday.
“I would like to publicly apolo-
gize to the people that I may have
endangered,” Gobert wrote on In-
stagram. “A t the time, I had no
idea I was even infected. I was
careless and make no excuse. I
hope m y story serves a s a warning
and causes everyone to take this
seriously. I will do whatever I can
to support using my e xperience as
way to educate others and p revent
the spread of this virus.”
Ye t Gobert wasn’t t he only NBA
figure struggling to understand
the imminent danger of the coro-
navirus.
Los Angeles Lakers forward Le-
Bron James said last friday he
wouldn’t p lay games in empty are-
nas, while others continued to
high-five and celebrate with each
other despite a league memo that
suggested they limit physical con-
tact with each o ther and w ith fans.
Indeed, the Jazz’s game against
the oklahoma City Thunder on
Wednesday evening wasn’t can-
celed until moments before tip-
off, even though the Jazz and the
NBA league office knew that Gob-
ert was being tested for the coro-
navirus. Later, Jazz guard Dono-
van mitchell tested positive as
well. mitchell went through his
typical warmup routine at Chesa-
peake Energy Arena, according to
people in the building, and he
interacted with teammates, oppo-
nents and ballboys.
“It’s crazy they tried to play that
game knowing that [Gobert] was
being tested,” a team executive
said. “Why did it take a positive
test to shut things down? The
players never should have been
stuck in that locker room all night,
and the fans shouldn’t have been
in the b uilding.”
Another executive added that
Wednesday’s game between the
Sacramento Kings and New or-
leans Pelicans, which was abrupt-
ly postponed because one of the
referees had worked a game in-
volving G obert on monday, s hould
have b een handled d ifferently.
“The ‘abundance of caution’
move would have been to shut
down both games a s soon as [Gob-
ert] needed t o be tested,” t he exec-that hadn’t faced an outbreak in
their communities didn’t think it
was worth talking a bout.”
on Wednesday’s call, the execu-
tive continued: “There were two
teams that were adamant that
games should continue like nor-
mal until there was government
intervention. ‘Why shut ourselves
down?’ [my organization] viewed
that [position] as completely irre-
sponsible to our fans and c ommu-
nity.”
The New York Knicks, Houston
rockets and Indiana Pacers ex-
pressed a desire to continue play-
ing in front of fans, according to
ESPN.com. In an interview with
CNBC, rockets owner Tilman f er-
titta said: “I would hope that we
would just suspend for a week or
two weeks. But you don’t want to
play games with no fans. That’s
never going t o work.”
Executives who were on calls or
had direct k nowledge of c alls with
the NBA this week said the league
office was progressing through a
collaborative process in an order-
ly manner, soliciting opinion from
all parties, issuing preparedness
directives and b uilding consensus
around playing in empty arenas
rather than postponing or delay-
ing the s eason.
S ilver consulted with David H o,
a noted HIV/AIDS research pio-
neer; former U.S. surgeon general
Vivek H. murthy; and the Centers
for Disease Control and Preven-
tion t hroughout the response pro-
cess, recognizing quickly that the
coronavirus had the potential to
be another in a series of crises for
the league, which had previously
dealt with strained relations with
China and the death of Kobe Bry-
ant this season.
The revelation Wednesday
night that Utah Jazz center rudy
Gobert had tested positive for the
virus changed everything.
Had Gobert not tested positive,
multiple executives said, they an-
ticipated the NBA would have
closed its arenas to fans T hursday
without suspending regular sea-
son play. for a majority of teams,
the prospect of playing games in
front of fans was “untenable,” ac-
cording to one executive, and
sticking to the anticipated sched-
ule was preferable than trying to
move d ates because of arena avail-
ability issues. A person with
knowledge of the league’s deci-
sion-making said t he owners were
aware that a player testing posi-
tive would prompt an immediate
schedule suspension.
Gobert testing positive “woke
everybody up,” o ne executive said.
nba from D1
The NBA’s decision came with much internal debate
The coronavirus outbreak
BY EMILY GIAMBALVOThe maryland men’s basketball
season ended Sunday when the
pl ayers and staff celebrated win-
ning a share of a conference title,
only the team didn’t know that
would be its last game of the sea-
son. The Te rrapins hoped instead
to build on that success in the Big
Te n and NCAA tournaments, but
both were canceled Thursday be-
cause o f coronavirus concerns.
The NCAA also announced the
cancellation of all remaining win-
ter and spring NCAA champion-
ships. The Big Ten announced “all
conference and nonconference
competitions through the end of
the academic year, including
spring sports that compete be-
yond the a cademic year,” meaning
every maryland team will not play
again u ntil t he fall.
for seniors such as point guard
Anthony Cowan Jr., this decision
ended their college careers. for all
the a thletes, the c ancellation shat-
tered their postseason hopes.
“Woww,” sophomore forward
Jalen S mith wrote on Twitter, “this
can’t b e real at a ll.”
As of Thursday morning, the
players thought they would head
to Indianapolis later that day for
the conference tournament and
then play in the NCAA tourna-
ment a week later. The maryland
women, winners of the Big Te n
tournament Sunday, were looking
at a likely No. 1 seed before the
NCAA’s announcement.
The Big Te n canceled its tourna-
ment at a bout 11:45 a.m. Thursday,
just before the day’s slate of games
was scheduled to begin at noon
and only hours before maryland’s
flight to Indianapolis, which was
scheduled to take off at 3:15 p.m.
maryland, the No. 3 seed in the
tournament, was set to open play
friday evening, facing the winner
of Thursday’s scheduled game be-
tween No. 6 Penn State and No. 11
Indiana.
“I understand and respect the
conference’s decision to cancel
this year’s Big Ten tournament,”
Coach mark Turgeon said in a
statement before the announce-
ment of the NCAA tournament’s
cancellation. “The health and
safety of our student-athletes and
entire program is paramount.
This is an unprecedented situa-
tion that is much bigger than bas-
ketball. I remain hopeful that a
resolution will be found t o provide
our student-athletes with the op-
portunity to complete their sea-
son.”maryland was supposed to
practice at noon Thursday. Tur-
geon told t he players a bout the B ig
Te n tournament cancellation in
the locker room, and the team did
not p ractice.
Big Ten Commissioner Kevin
Warren said in Indianapolis that
the conference will not crown a
tournament champion and the
tournament will not take place at
a later date.
“If I was a student-athlete, I
would be irate if someone came
and said, ‘You can’t play in a
game,’ ” Warren said on the Big
Te n Network. “That’s what makes
them special. And that’s what I
expect them to be, is that they
want to play. That’s what makes
competition, that’s what makes
intercollegiate athletics so special.
But a t the e nd o f the d ay, we have a
responsibility to make sure we do
the r ight thing.”
maryland’s spring football
practice was scheduled to begin
march 24, but a team spokesman
said, “all practices are suspended
until further notice.” The confer-
ence-wide cancellation only men-
tions competitive events, not
practices. The Big Te n announced
“a moratorium on all on- and off-
campus recruiting activities for
the f oreseeable f uture.”
University of maryland stu-
dents are on spring break next
week, but classes also have been
canceled for the following week
(march 23-27). Until April 10,
classes will b e online.
The Te rrapins men’s basketball
team earned a share of the confer-
ence title S unday w ith its win o ver
michigan in the season finale.
Even though spectators already
had been barred from attending
Big Ten tournament games begin-
ning Thursday, maryland parents
had p lanned t o attend.
Some maryland players ex-
pressed similar shock on social
media with the conference tour-
nament’s cancellation. others did
the same once the NCAA tourna-
ment was canceled. A maryland
media availability session sched-
uled for Thursday afternoon was
canceled.
The NCAA initially announced
Wednesday afternoon that the
NCAA tournament would be
played without fans, but that was
before announcements of cancel-
lations began r olling out en masse.
After Utah Jazz player rudy Gob-
ert tested p ositive f or coronavirus,
the NBA suspended its season,
and o ther leagues followed suit.
[email protected]D one before they began,
Terrapins left stunned
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