COVID puts kibosh on three more MJHL teams

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This article was published 07/11/2020 (1510 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Life is getting more complicated in the MJHL.

A public health order, which raised the Southern Health Region to code red starting Monday, has effectively halted on-ice activity for the Steinbach Pistons, Winkler Flyers and Portage Terriers.

The Pistons, Flyers, Terriers and OCN Blizzard joined the Winnipeg Freeze, Winnipeg Blues and Selkirk Steelers off the ice.

The latter three teams were shut down a week ago when Winnipeg was upgraded to code red leaving only five teams available to play entering a scheduled bye week. OCN was put on hold after a confirmed COVID-19 case last week.

Steinbach had already close down on-ice workouts last week and a weekend series against the Flyers was postponed when three Pistons fell ill and were tested for COVID-19.

Sunday, Steinbach general manager/head coach Paul Dyck had no news to report on the results of those tests.

In Winkler, head coach Kelvin Cech put his team through practice on Friday and Saturday after learning code red would be beginning Monday.

“No one has to go home,” said Cech via telephone. “We can sit tight. There’s no practising, we can obviously can’t play games, but we can use our gym at 25 per cent capacity. We just wear masks while we’re doing it.

“I’ve got a rotation of four groups where the guys can use the gym and then they have a half hour to use the dressing room to stretch. When they’re all clear, another group comes in and basically they do that twice a day.”

The only games played on the weekend included: Virden beat the visiting Swan Valley Stampeders 5-4 Friday to move to 8-0-1-0 and top spot in the Interior Division while the Waywayseecappo Wolverines swept a home-and-home series with the Neepawa Natives, 4-3 and 6-1, to improve to 7-3-0-0.

However, there was a glimmer of good news for the Flyers with the return of overage defenceman Drake Burgin from the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints.

Burgin, the MJHL’s top defenceman last season, was released after the Saints received a late flurry of returning overage veterans.

“He is coming back,” said Cech of Burgin, who recently accepted a scholarship to attend St. Lawrence University. “He’s in Winnipeg quarantining (since the middle of last week) and the next game we play, he’ll be in the lineup.

“We’ve kind of managed this far without him, although we’ve lost four games in a row, which isn’t very cool. He can’t come in and he can’t join the workouts or anything like that until he’s through his two weeks.”

Burgin would be eligible to play in the Flyers next scheduled game against the Portage Terriers on Nov. 18 if the game were to go ahead.

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14