Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has disclosed in a press briefing on Sunday 3rd May, 2020 that players on Canadian team who have been out of the country would possibly have to quarantine to join the team again, should NHL decide to resume 2019/2020 season.
”I think it’s a question we’ll have to look into.Certainly at a strict minimum, anyone who arrives from another country will have to follow all the rules of quarantine in an extremely strict manner, but we’re not there yet in our discussions with the NHL,” said Trudeau.
“We recognize that it’s a possibility, but it depends on an enormous amount of things, and I don’t want to speculate on this until there’s more discussion,” he added.
The 2019/2020 season was suspended on March 12 because of coronavirus outbreak. Eight NHL players have been diagnosed with Covid-19 so far.
NHL is determined to complete the season and has been considering Edmonton and Toronto cities as the “hockey pod” to be used for the remaining games.
Speaking about what needs to be done if the season is to resume, deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, said that frequent Covid-19 test would be required for the games to resume.
“We’re going to need to have access to testing, and we’re going to make it a point that we’re not accessing testing, even in a private way, if testing availability is an issue in the community,” Bill Daly said.
“We will not test asymptomatic players ahead of symptomatic people who are unable to get tested. It’s just something we will not do,” he added.
