By STEPHEN WHYNO, AP Hockey Author
The Nationwide Ladies’s Hockey League known as off the rest of its season Wednesday on the eve of the playoffs due to extra constructive take a look at outcomes for the coronavirus.
The NWHL cited security issues for what it known as the suspension of play inside a quarantined bubble in Lake Placid, New York. COVID-19 as a substitute wreaked havoc on the two-week occasion.
Two of the league’s six groups had already withdrawn from the event, with the Metropolitan Riveters citing “a number of” virus circumstances. The league didn’t verify the Connecticut Whale’s departure was illness-related and mentioned solely it accepted their determination to forfeit a sport and withdraw.
The Riveters’ departure final Thursday led the NWHL to postpone all video games that day with play resuming Saturday. Coach Ivo Mocek mentioned on the time: “Our crew is heartbroken to not have the possibility to compete for the Isobel Cup, however we’re aligned with the league in prioritizing the well-being of the entire gamers and workers.”
The NWHL had an settlement with Yale College to supply saliva-based COVID-19 testing for gamers and workers, much like what the NBA used for its Disney World bubble final 12 months. Even that testing could not hold the virus out.
Two semifinal video games Thursday and and the ultimate Friday have been set to be televised nationally within the U.S. on NBC Sports activities Community, placing girls’s hockey in a distinguished highlight a 12 months away from the Beijing Olympics.
The tip of the NWHL bubble experiment got here on the identical day the rival Skilled Ladies’s Hockey Gamers Affiliation introduced it’s going to play a sport at New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard on Feb. 28. The PWHPA is made up of 125 of the game’s largest stars, together with these on the U.S. and Canadian nationwide groups, who banded collectively within the hopes of forcing the creation of a brand new professional league.
The sport at MSG comes 13 months after PWHPA gamers took half in NHL All-Star Weekend. Will probably be the primary skilled girls’s hockey sport on the storied area.
“This can be a main milestone for girls’s hockey and younger women who aspire to play skilled hockey however don’t have the choice to make it a profession in the present day,” mentioned Hockey Corridor of Famer Jayna Hefford, an operations advisor for the PWHPA.
The NHL’s New York Rangers are internet hosting the ladies’s sport with the crew enjoying at Buffalo that day. Rangers president John Davidson mentioned the crew is “excited to play even a small function in serving to elevate visibility for the ladies’s sport.”
“The expertise degree of girls’s hockey is just unimaginable,” Davidson mentioned. “All of us love this sport a lot and any alternative the Rangers should take part in its development is one thing we wish to be part of. It’s a win for everybody concerned.”
The sport in New York is about to be the primary cease on the second “Dream Hole Tour,” with others across the U.S. and Canada to be decided. The announcement was made on Nationwide Ladies and Ladies in Sports activities Day.
“Investing in and advancing girls’s hockey strengthens the sport general and creates a variety {of professional} alternatives for girls as coaches, entrance workplace executives and athletes,” mentioned Mary-Kay Messier, Bauer Hockey vp of worldwide advertising and marketing and an adviser to the PHWPA.
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