The National Hockey League has announced a formal return of gameplay plan, and now the safety guidelines to go along with it are being released.
According to Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, players will be tested every day should there be a postseason.
“We will have a rigorous daily testing protocol where players are tested every evening and those results are obtained before they would leave their hotel rooms the next morning, so we’ll know if we have a positive test and whether the player has to self-quarantine himself as a result of that positive test,” Daly said. “It’s expensive, but we think it’s really a foundational element of what we’re trying to accomplish.”
NHL Comissioner Gary Bettman estimated that between 25,000 and 35,000 tests will be needed over the course of the playoffs; each test costs $125.
“You need testing at a level sufficient to be confident that you’re going to be on top of anything which might happen,” NHL Players’ Association executive director Don Fehr said. “If that turns out to be daily, and that’s available, that’s OK. That would be good. If it turns out that that’s not quite what we need and we can get by with a little less, that’s OK.”
It sounds like the NHL is pulling out all the stops to ensure that players can be kept safe.
– – Quotes via Stephen Whyno of WXYZ Link – –
