Damien Cox: Sorry, OHL, but health has to come before hitting — or no hitting — in hockey

This is a hockey story that’s not really about hockey.

It’s about health and a deadly pandemic. That said, there have been many, many things about the sport of hockey over the years, from the use of protective equipment to concussions to abuse of officials, that have seen health issues brought into direct conflict with playing the game.

Right now, there’s very little hockey being played in these parts. The coronavirus, as one might suspect, is hitting hockey, mostly an indoor sport in 2020, rather hard at all levels.

This has also meant the Ontario Hockey League, one of the larger hockey business enterprises in the province, has been hit hard. The OHL didn’t get to finish its 2019-20 season, and there was no OHL representation at the annual Memorial Cup competition because there was no MemCup.

Of the 20 OHL teams, only Erie, Flint and Saginaw are not based in Ontario. The profitability of the league has been under scrutiny for some time, particularly with lawsuits suggesting playing in the league should actually be considered as employment and subject to provincial standards.

Not playing at all, however, is quite clearly a dagger to the heart of even the wealthier teams. So this is a hockey business under severe duress.

Having the National Hockey League complete a “bubble” season with remarkable efficiency wasn’t much help, as there’s no way the OHL can conduct its business in a similar fashion. Junior players have to go to school, live with billets, travel on buses and interact with their families.

The hope of the OHL is to start up again Feb. 4, but that’s just a vague guess at the moment. The Western Hockey League wants to begin play in January, while the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is technically playing these days but eight of 18 QMJHL teams have already had to shut down temporarily because of coronavirus outbreaks.

As it stands, the evidence seems to suggest that hockey just isn’t a safe sport right now. That’s certainly what Ontario Minister of Sport Lisa McLeod indicated in a speech to the Empire Club of Canada a few days ago when she stated clearly that if there is to be any OHL competition this season, and it’s not at all clear there will be, it will have to take place without significant body contact to reduce the risk.

“It’s not just in the OHL, not just in hockey, but in all sports,” McLeod said. “We’re in a very serious game right now and the reality is we have to take these health precautions.

Without a vaccine, she said, it’s unlikely that will change. Over the weekend, there were about 2,000 new COVID cases in Ontario. That shows we’re heading in the wrong direction.

This is where we were on Saturday afternoon, which seemed a sensible place to be, although it left some hockey diehards unhappy. McLeod’s stance seemed entirely appropriate.

So of course this is where Doug Ford decided he needed to step in.

Every once in a while, Ford likes to mimic Donald Trump, and he did so on Saturday night by tweeting his intention to find a way for the OHL to resume with full body contact. Yes, government by tweet. How useful. In this case, it also completely undermined what the premier’s sports minister had said just the day before.

Now it could be that, after botching Halloween, DoFo is a little skittish about laying down the hammer. Moreover, as we saw in 2018 when the Ontario government supported the notion that OHL players are “amateur” athletes and therefore not subject to labour laws, this government seems to embrace the notion that businessmen who profit from major junior hockey should be permitted to operate under a different set of rules.

But if it isn’t good public health policy to allow children and teenagers outside the OHL to play hockey because of the coronavirus threat, not to mention soccer, football, baseball and basketball, how would it possibly make sense for the Ontario junior league to play, with or without bodychecking?

There are many hockey fans and supporters, of course, who would say bodychecking is an absolutely vital element of the sport at the major junior level. No hitting, and it’s not hockey, they’d argue. As well, some of the players in the OHL are NHL prospects, and not allowing them to compete under the same conditions as usual is robbing them of the chance to make it to the big time, some hockey folks would argue.

This might be true. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is fighting the pandemic, first and foremost. McLeod has that right. Her boss has it wrong.

In Canada, there have been some pretty sensible decisions made involving sports and the pandemic. The CFL asked for a large government handout, and the feds said no. So the CFL shut down. Major League Baseball wanted the Blue Jays to be permitted to cross the border frequently without quarantining. The Trudeau government said no, and the Jays shifted operations to Buffalo.

Not all of our country’s coronavirus decisions have been correct, or even consistent. This is a hard and complex problem. We’re doing a reasonable job, if not a perfect one, of avoiding giving some elements of society — like sports — preferential treatment over others as we fight this epidemic.

If, as some argue, it is pointless for the OHL to play games without bodychecking, then perhaps the league won’t be able to play at all for now. That’s OK. We all want to play hockey this winter, and watch our kids play, and watch the NHL, the world juniors and other elite hockey. But we understand that’s not possible right now because of the nature of the game and the viciousness of this virus.

Right now, health and science need to come first. Not the debatable needs of junior hockey.

Damien Cox is a former Star sports reporter who is a current freelance contributing columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @DamoSpin