The National Hockey League’s ever-evolving COVID-19 policy has an update. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Wednesday that the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed to the possibility of vaccinated individuals leaving isolation five days after a positive COVID test.
This is in line with new CDC guidelines. Players must still have no symptoms or “resolving symptoms”, negative tests, and full clearance from club physicians to exit protocol after the five days.
Friedman made sure to point out that this new policy does however have a caveat and that caveat is that the early exit from protocol must be permitted by local health authorities. That obviously may be an issue in Canada where seven of the 32 NHL teams reside and potentially in parts of California.
NEWS: #NHL has officially shortened isolation period to 5 days with a negative test – IF allowed by local health authorities.#NHL now in line with CDC guidelines, according to memo distributed to teams today which was obtained by @DailyFaceoff.
Here’s the updated protocol ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/XLp9Ghq0va
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) December 29, 2021
Friedman also reports that teams and players seem to be very happy with this change.
“I think that’s good,” Nashville Predators forward Filip Forsberg said to the Associated Press’s Stephen Whyno when asked for his reaction to the changes. “Obviously, we’ve had a bunch of guys on our team also with basically zero symptoms and I can only imagine how frustrating it’s been for those guys sitting there perfectly healthy and cant be back out on the ice. I think that’s a good step. Obviously, testing will still be a regular thing, I’m sure, and that’s something that we dealt with all last year, so we’re used to that. But I think that’s the way to do it as long as we can keep everything in the way it’s been, which has been pretty safe to me.”
This news could also majorly affect the Capitals as the team just announced Monday that six players were added to protocol due to COVID and would be unavailable for the near future. Among those six players, under these new guidelines, Daniel Sprong (December 21), Justin Schultz (December 21), and Nick Jensen (December 23) all could potentially be back sooner than once thought.
Similar to the NHL, both the NFL and NBA have recently decided to adopt similar policies based on the CDC update.
