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WHL season starts tonight, Cougars remain idle

The puck drops tonight for the Western Hockey League season, but only in the Central Division. The Red Deer Rebels will host the Medicine Hat Tigers at Westerner Park Centrum starting at 6 p.m.
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Andy Beesley, the Prince George Cougars' vice-president, business, remains optimistic the Cougars will soon be playing hockey in their WHL hubs in Kelowna and Kamloops and the Cougars are planning ways to help their fans heal for next season when they can once again see their team play at CN Centre.

The puck drops tonight for the Western Hockey League season, but only in the Central Division.

The Red Deer Rebels will host the Medicine Hat Tigers at Westerner Park Centrum starting at 6 p.m. PT, while the Edmonton Oil Kings will christen their temporary home at Downtown Community Arena tonight at 7 p.m. PT when they play the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

WHL arenas have been dark since March 11, when the league put its season on pause because of the pandemic and the rest of the season and playoffs were later cancelled.

The WHL East Division is expected to start March 12, although the schedule has not been released, while the U.S. Division has its first game set for March 18 in Kennewick, Wash, where the Tri-City Americans host the Portland Winterhawks.

The Prince George Cougars and the rest of B.C. Division still don’t know when they’ll get their seasons underway and won’t know until they are told by the provincial health authority. That’s not going to happen any time soon. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said in her Thursday news briefing the current restrictions on team activities which ban any competitions remain in effect indefinitely, with hundreds of new cases of COVID-19 still being diagnosed daily in the province.

All teams in the WHL are tentatively scheduled to play a 24-game schedule and once they do receive the go-ahead from the health office the five B.C.-based teams will play those games using Kamloops and Kelowna as their hubs. Schedules to cover every possible scenario have been worked out with the Cougars, Kamloops Blazers and Victoria Royals based in Kamloops at Sandman Centre, while the Kelowna Rockets and Vancouver Giants use Prospera Centre in Kelowna as their home rink.

The Cougars are taking a cautious approach in line with the advice they are receiving from the medical experts and the team is not willing to join the chorus of dissenters who think the province is being too strict with its restrictions on team activities, compared to other jurisdictions which are now allowing games to proceed.

“There’s lots of people wanting us to sign petitions and so on, but that’s been going on for a while now,” said Andy Beesley, the Cougars vice-president, business. “But that’s starting to ramp up again just because everybody’s getting antsy with the puck drop that’s happening tonight with the other division.

“All we know is what we’ve submitted to the government, which is a comprehensive plan, and we’re getting good feedback on it but we don’t have approval. There is a schedule but it’s pointless to even talk about it until we get confirmation and a start date.”

The Cougars and other WHL teams have had nearly a full year of uncertainty, not knowing when they can play hockey again, and Beesley doesn’t want to speculate on when B.C. teams will be back on the ice.

 “I remain very hopeful, we think we’ve done everything we possibly can to create excellent first-class plans that respect the burden that’s being put on public health right now and we’re respecting the extremely difficult decisions Dr. Bonnie Henry and her staff are having to make,” said Beesley.

“We’re not annoyed at all, it’s a pandemic,” he said. “We understand that the number one thing has to be the safety and caring concern of our community. If Dr. Henry and our head coach Mark Lamb are sitting in room talking about how to run a power play, and no disrespect to Dr. Henry, but I’m really just going to listen to a person who is educated and has dedicated his entire life to the game and put my trust in him.

“If we’re talking about pandemics and whether we should be playing and we have the same two people in the room with me, I’m going to look at Dr. Henry and no disrespect to Mark, but she’s spent her entire life in this area of expertise and whether she’s 100 accurate or not with her decision I have to respect what she says and ultimately our team is prepared to be a good follower.”

March starts on Monday and Beesley admits the point of no return to salvage the season is rapidly approaching and there is a limit to how late the start date is.

“I can say that whatever date that might be is starting to emerge on the horizon,” said Beesley. “There’s a couple of considerations. We’re proposing to play in Kelowna and Kamloops but I would imagine, just like Prince George, they shut down for the summer and take their ice out. The other thing is you can’t have the players play through the summer and have to have no break and start up again for next fall.”

Beesley said teams require three weeks notice of their season start to allow for travel, 14-day quarantines and COVID testing. The Cougar players are preparing for what could be only a week-long training camp, and the plan to have them bypass Prince George entirely and meet in Kamloops. The players and team personnel would be housed in hotels for the entire length of the season and there would be limits on the number of players and staff allowed, with restrictions on where they could go.

Cougar fans will get to see the games but only through online streaming on WHL Live. The streaming service will webcast games and the team is offering discounted subscription rates to season members so they can watch the games.

“Almost certainly, I think all of us are accepting of the fact that the chance of us having fans in the stands is probably zero this season,” said Beesley. “The new Verizon webcast streaming service we’re using is a big upgrade for the league and it will make it easier for fans to tune in WHL hockey. We have some amazing deals that are happening this year because we respect the fact that people are missing hockey.”

Beesley said the Cougars are planning for a full 68-game 2021-22 season with home games at CN Centre and he said season ticket holders will be given top priority so they see the games live if teams are restricted to reduced capacity in their home arenas.

“We are so aware of the hardships people are going through and how stressed-out people are and how difficult this period has been for so many so we want to transcend hockey once we’re back in the fold and find ways to really be part of a community healing process,” said Beesley. “We take that role seriously, we think we’re more than hockey when it comes to next season and we want to find ways to gather the community back together and really help people get back to being able to socialize with each other in a safe way to give our community hope for the future. We need that personally - our team’s been hurt badly for the past year - and we also accept the fact our community partners and residents need it as well.”