Hockey East Quarterfinals > UConn @ Maine (Friday 3/13 @7p, Saturday 3/14 @6p & Sunday 3/15 @6p) Update > Cancelled

[freescooter]

I’m not surprised either. And apparently Massachusetts is on the verge of becoming a hot spot. So playing in the Garden was probably off the table for the finals.

 

[Fairfield_1st]

While agree with you in spirit, I do understand that they’ve always been a Boston sports channel. They have no reason to change that for Connecticut vs Maine when all the Massachusetts teams are playing. Especially BC, who are having a darn good year.

The HE Playoffs is just another example in a long line of examples. I've complained to them when they've ignored UConn events in lieu of a puff piece on a local (MA) high school talent. Change the name to MASN if you're going to be Mass centric. But if you're NESN, then represent all of NE.
I was trying to find TV ratings to see if that would validate them or me, but didn't find anything in my quick search. It should be about ratings, no?

 

[Sea Goat]

This is all such a huge overreaction. As long as the student athletes want to do it, Play the games with no fans. I'm probably in the minority but dont care.

Frankly, I hope you're right about the over reaction!

 

[Bomber36]

This is all such a huge overreaction. As long as the student athletes want to do it, Play the games with no fans. I'm probably in the minority but dont care.

i have to disagree with you there. This is a worldwide issue and more that are infected, no matter where they are or their age, the more will die. It’s in the math. The only way to slow this down is to be smart and do what is being done. It kills me to lose the sports as well, but in the scheme of things, we all know it’s not that important. Lives are. I live with a daughter who was born with an immune deficiency and a elderly mother-in-law(I know, god help me) but this is a way to protect the most vulnerable in our society right now. Sorry...end of speech. Don’t take it personally. I agree with 99.9 percent of your posts. Stay safe out there boneyarders.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[The Viking]

i have to disagree with you there. This is a worldwide issue and more that are infected, no matter where they are or their age, the more will die. It’s in the math. The only way to slow this down is to be smart and do what is being done. It kills me to lose the sports as well, but in the scheme of things, we all know it’s not that important. Lives are. I live with a daughter who was born with an immune deficiency and a elderly mother-in-law(I know, god help me) but this is a way to protect the most vulnerable in our society right now. Sorry...end of speech. Don’t take it personally. I agree with 99.9 percent of your posts. Stay safe out there boneyarders.

I don't take it personally, discussion is always good.

As someone who loves watching sports, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that sporting events with no fans in attendance is being completely shut down due to it being an unnecessary danger to society and then we have St. Patrick's Day coming up with bars filled with drunk, happy, hugging, high-fiving, toasting, and god knows what else. And I say that has someone who loves Guinness at a pub.

Sports is something that allows us to take our mind off the crap that is sometimes life. Again, if players are worried, I have no qualms with that being the reason things are completely shut down. If they are all gung-ho - and I think that's the nature of the athlete - let them play while being as cautious as possible.

Let life happen while being as cautious as possible.

We are veering quickly towards everyone having to stay home until a vaccine is discovered unless they have to get groceries or meds. Little league I'm sure is next on the chopping block. With the way things happen so quickly - with schools closing like wildfire in CT - I'm sure LL is next. And quite frankly, the one sport that can NOT lose a year of youth playing is baseball.

It's just happening so fast, and some of it unnecessarily IMO. This absolutely sucks for seniors - high school or college.

 

[navery12]

I don't take it personally, discussion is always good.

As someone who loves watching sports, I just can't wrap my head around the idea that sporting events with no fans in attendance is being completely shut down due to it being an unnecessary danger to society and then we have St. Patrick's Day coming up with bars filled with drunk, happy, hugging, high-fiving, toasting, and god knows what else. And I say that has someone who loves Guinness at a pub.

Sports is something that allows us to take our mind off the crap that is sometimes life. Again, if players are worried, I have no qualms with that being the reason things are completely shut down. If they are all gung-ho - and I think that's the nature of the athlete - let them play while being as cautious as possible.

Let life happen while being as cautious as possible.

We are veering quickly towards everyone having to stay home until a vaccine is discovered unless they have to get groceries or meds. Little league I'm sure is next on the chopping block. With the way things happen so quickly - with schools closing like wildfire in CT - I'm sure LL is next on the chopping block. And quite frankly, the one sport that can NOT lose a year of youth playing is baseball.

It's just happening so fast, and some of it unnecessarily IMO. This absolutely sucks for seniors - high school or college.

I'm taking this response a lot more seriously than a lot of people I've argued with over the past few days because you seem genuine. I really hope this all ends up an overreaction and it wasn't needed, but I'm generally someone who's very easy-going and I'm very worried about this.

It really sucks to have no sports and especially for kids to stop playing. But right now we really just need to be creating as much social distancing as possible, and from what we've seen (in other countries and in the very brief US games and no fans) just asking isn't enough

 

[The Viking]

So what is the real goal here in terms of prevention - to have people stay home unless you have to leave your house (i.e. work, groceries, food) until a vaccine is discovered? And by all accounts a vaccine will not be discovered and distributed for a good 12-18 months.

And for those thinking that sports will only be shut down for a month or two - or schools will only be shut down for a couple weeks - why? What is the thresh hold where all of a sudden people will be at ease with going on with life? Because the numbers are only going to go up as more testing is done even if we are being extra careful. And if numbers are going up - or even if they are leveling off - why will people be more at ease - because the virus will still be out there without a vaccine.

 

[navery12]

So what is the real goal here in terms of prevention - to have people stay home unless you have to leave your house (i.e. work, groceries, food) until a vaccine is discovered? And by all accounts a vaccine will not be discovered and distributed for a good 12-18 months.

Right now the main goal is to slow down the spread. There's no vaccine right now, so the goal is to slow down the spread of the disease. There's going to be some number of people effected (right now estimates are 1/3 of the country). If that happens over the next year we'll be able to save and treat the majority of people. If it all happens in the next 2 months we become Italy and doctors are choosing which people are worth saving

 

[The Viking]

Do we just become homebodies for 12-18 months?
Based on the last 72 hours paint a picture for me where we aren't all just stuck at home until there is a vaccine because I just dont see it.
What will happen in the next two months that will make everything all of a sudden start normalizing without a vaccine.
And our LL has just announced it is likely all but done. Def for the next 3 weeks but most likely shut down for the year. Great.

 

[navery12]

I meant what is the best realistic way we try to prevent the spread. Do we just become homebodies for 12-18 months?
I just cant fathom that's realistic

I'm admittedly naive in how long this would ideally last. I dont think a year of isolation needs to happen but a few months of limited large crowds could go a long way

 

[kingdobbs]

So what is the real goal here in terms of prevention - to have people stay home unless you have to leave your house (i.e. work, groceries, food) until a vaccine is discovered? And by all accounts a vaccine will not be discovered and distributed for a good 12-18 months.

And for those thinking that sports will only be shut down for a month or two - or schools will only be shut down for a couple weeks - why? What is the thresh hold where all of a sudden people will be at ease with going on with life? Because the numbers are only going to go up as more testing is done even if we are being extra careful. And if numbers are going up - or even if they are leveling off - why will people be more at ease - because the virus will still be out there without a vaccine.

The goal is to slow down the spread so that a graph of the spread over time looks less like a hockey stick, and that the hope of containing the disease looks less like a game of Whack-A-Mole. In so doing, that will (hopefully) prevent local and regional health services (i.e. hospitals and clinics) from being overwhelmed, trained health care professionals from being themselves infected and becoming victims*, and generally prevent (hopefully) the need to enact stricter lockdown or quarantine protocols.

And no doubt, one of the things epidemiologists and other health care professionals are concerned about is the notion that just one or two people infected come into a "clean" place like a Seattle nursing home or a Boston biomedical meeting or a DC political action conference or a New York synagogue and suddenly within a few days or so you have dozens if not hundreds of confirmed cases and/or positive tests. Now project that onto an area like...oh, let's just pull a random not-related-at-all-to-the-initial topic-of-the-thread location out of a hat...the Bangor, Maine MSA. What's the number of virus-related cases an MSA of about 150,000 can handle without significantly disrupting their ability to handle the baseline level of health situations that DON'T STOP HAPPENING just because there's a new virus out there? What kind of ability will there be for an outbreak to be contained just to the Bangor area without just one person slipping past and, let's just pick another entirely unrelated location out of a hat, getting to St. Paul MN or Montreal QC or Bujedovice in the Czech Republic and doing the exact same thing as what happened in Cambridge, or Kirkland, or New Rochelle?

So essentially what they want to happen is to get the spread of cases leveled off, to avoid creating new disease hotspots, to hopefully keep any disruptions to public life and citizen freedom localized to existing hotspots, and allowing the disease to "burn itself out" to the degree possible so that it doesn't overwhelm local and regional health services in the 12-18 months it will take us to get a vaccine.

*One of the most significant factors in disease outbreaks turning from nuisance to civilization-destroyers.

I meant what is the best realistic way we try to prevent the spread. Do we just become homebodies for 12-18 months?
I just cant fathom that's realistic

The "good" news on that front is that it doesn't take much more than a couple of weeks for a person to go from "infected" to "no longer infected" (whether that means because they died or because they beat the virus). So theoretically, if EVERY one of the current thousand plus confirmed positive cases (and every one of the ones we don't know about) is kept away from infecting new people for a couple-three weeks and disease transmission afterwards is kept to a minimum (and not asymptotically exploding like it is now) while the vaccine is created, disruptions to regular living should only be about a month, and if we're lucky, won't really involve having to stay in place for any extended length of time if we aren't personally infected and/or symptomatic.

But that's assuming any current or immediate-future mitigation attempts are successful and/or timely at slowing the rate of infection.

 

[The Viking]

Should not all bars, restaurants, movie theaters be closed if we are shutting down sporting events, schools and little leagues?
Why half ass it?
Also - and I appreciate all the info - are schools really going to reopen this spring? I just dont see it.

 

[kingdobbs]

Should not all bars, restaurants, movie theaters be closed if we are shutting down sporting events, schools and little leagues?
Why half ass it?

You’re assuming that such things aren’t and/or won’t be in the immediate future, just because they haven’t happened already.