Ice Cold Takes: What are we supposed to do in a world with no hockey?

Ice Cold Takes is a weekly humor column covering what is trending around the NHL. If you’re reading this, you’ve been in quarantine for too long.

The NHL season has been postponed. Sooo… what do you guys want to talk about?

Seriously. If you’re under quarantine and you’ve landed on this article, I apologize. You have most certainly read through every decent post on this site (and others), beat your video games, read your books and played with your dogs… only to land here. A sad conclusion to a valiant effort to kill time.

Obviously, there isn’t much to talk about when it comes to what is trending around the NHL. The sports world has been rocked by COVID-19 (or the novel coronavirus) over the last week, as every major sports league, tournament and large social gathering has been canceled in an attempt to control the spread of the disease. Obviously, this is no joking matter, which is too bad because the puns I had ready to go this week were sick.

There’s no need to panic. When hockey was taken away, Canada took action. As a country, we have contingency plans in place to cover everything with the ability to hurt our beautiful game. You take our hockey, you get a vaccine. You’re welcome, world. It’ll be some time before the potential vaccine becomes available to humans though, so we are still stuck in quarantine for a while.

We’re entering a span of time without sports. It’s going to be confusing, boring and probably lead to the next “Texas Hold ’em” but it is necessary to properly control this pandemic, which brings us to our first trend of the week.

Rolling the dice

It’s somewhat concerning how little regard some of you have for “two percent” of the population. This isn’t going to turn into a lecture on what is right and wrong in times of a pandemic, because obviously I’m no doctor, but perhaps we could move away from the “it only kills x percent of people” argument while debating the postponements?

For the sake of simplicity, let’s go with two percent. That’s probably wrong, but it’s the number that everyone booking $50 cruises are using to convince themselves they’ll be safe. There are 713 players in the NHL (quick math version). Two percent of that is 14.26 players. Could you imagine if 14 NHL players and Nathan Gerbe died?!

“But it only affects old people” is a great argument if you hate your in-laws, but let’s be a little more compassionate, yeah?

The ice is too hot

Obviously the NHL is going to resume the season at some point, to some capacity, whenever the coronavirus is under control. How does that look for the rest of us?

Expect to see NHL games in July. The Stanley Cup will most likely be decided in the middle of summer, which will be great for all the teams with ball hockey experience. The ice in many arenas (what up TD Garden) gets very bad as the weather gets warmer so we’re going to see a lot of sloppy play and bouncing pucks in the Cup final. Players who can control the puck like this kid will be fine:

https://twitter.com/NHL/status/1237499771969044481

Quarantine this man immediately because his hands are filthy.

How can I make this about Gritty?

If you still aren’t convinced that coronavirus isn’t dangerous, let me explain it in terms that you’ll understand.

Pretend that NHL mascots represent the regular flu. They are an annoying nuisance that affect a handful of people who come into contact with them. Your best bet is to stay away and let them pass.

Gritty is coronavirus. It doesn’t give a f**k about you or your family. It’ll severely assault the elderly. It’ll hang around public areas for far longer than it should. It’s scary. It’s mean. It’s dirty. Nobody knows exactly where it came from or how to stop it. It really doesn’t care how much toilet paper you’ve purchased because there’s no getting away from it. In relation to the other mascots (regular flu) it’s a true menace.

If coronavirus were an NHL mascot, it would two hand your grandmother then punch your teenager in the face. And it would get away with all of it.

The next big sport

ESPN has to fill their schedule with something. The last time sports shut down, poker became a worldwide phenomenon. The next big thing can’t involve any crowds and ESPN will have to think fast, as we are starting to get bored and they are running out of experts to call in to talk about coronavirus. Here are a few ideas:

Esports: The logical choice. If esports were ever going to really take off on a larger scale than they already have, now seems like the opportune time to do so.

Animals: As far as I know, animals cannot contract the virus. Let’s get them out there playing the sports we can’t! There has literally never been a better time for an Air Bud reboot.

Live stream of Stephen A. Smith yelling: They do this anyway. Just set up a studio at his house.

10m Air Pistol: The highlight of every Summer Olympics is the 10m air pistol. It’s about time it got proper recognition.

Stanley Cup champions

In the event that the coronavirus doesn’t go away any time soon, the Boston Bruins, as current presidents trophy leaders, will be award the Stanley Cup. I don’t care about what has happened in the past or anything in the rule book that contradicts this. I called dibs.

Wash your hands.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your province or state’s Department of Health.