We’re in the Return to Play era of the 2019-20 season and we couldn’t be more conflicted with how things should be handled. There’s a group of people who think this is a good idea, something we needs, and a distraction. There’s a group that’s want the season to end, have concern for the player’s health, and don’t care for distractions in these trying times.

Not going to lie, but I’m on the fence of both.

Overall, the NHL has seemingly done a lot to make sure testing is accessible, players and staff who do test positive are isolated quickly, and want to make sure when they get into the bubbles; they’re safer than they would be if they weren’t in a bubble.

The biggest thing is this training camp to bubble time, where the NHL hopes that the players self-isolate and not get into health trouble like how reports are circulating about the St. Louis Blues had a get-together and had multiple positive cases after.

After three-plus months of isolation, you could expect that there would be positive cases in the absence of a vaccine. People aren’t intertwined with people outside of who they isolated with, so they’ll have to build an immunity to it without a vaccine. It really shouldn’t shock everyone, but that’s where the “Shut the Season” people lose me because one or two positive tests aren’t an alarm for shutting the whole thing down.

That’s where the opt-out comes in and good on the players who have opted out for putting their health first or because they didn’t feel like they’d be in peak condition or wanted to travel and then not play at all. The NHL gave them that option, teams on the surface are giving two thumbs up to the players making that decision, and most of the fans are understanding in why these players are doing it.

Where the real lookout is going to be is two weeks from today. By all accounts, the C19 takes a two-week period for positives to come through, if not sooner. With all the players back in full, the look at testing and the results will be under a bigger microscope. While the NHL has said that a rash of positives aren’t going to bury the season from their point of view, you have to wonder if public and/or sponsor pressure (brought on by the public or by their own accord) would be something that torpedoes the season.

However, you have to look to NASCAR to see a small sample of how to deal with a possible test of a name driver. Jimmie Johnson publicly shared a positive test on July 3rd. He missed the race that weekend at Indianapolis, but returned this past weekend at Kentucky after two consecutive days of negative tests. If that’s the case for the NHL and the cases that are positive are asymptomatic like Johnson’s were…I could see why the season wouldn’t be shuttered because of some positive testing. Plus, the driver himself had more questions than answers after the double-negative after the positive.

It’s hard to predict what way the virus and the sporting leagues will go. Learning new things everyday about the virus and then having to change what was learned because of new information is very goal-post-moving, but something that’s necessary for these unprecedented times.