The Vancouver Canucks‘ season remains on pause as a COVID-19 outbreak has hit the team.
The NHL has already postponed Canucks games until Thursday, with the practice facility opening no sooner than Tuesday, as eight members of the team entered the league’s COVID protocol list.
According to sources, the Canucks received even more positive tests Friday night — which could keep them out of action even longer. TSN first reported on the additional tests. The Vancouver region has recently become a hot spot for the P.1 Brazilian variant of the virus.
The Canucks are the second Canadian-based team to have COVID issues. The Montreal Canadiens had four games postponed in late March but have since returned to action. The NHL has now postponed 45 games due to COVID, though the first 37 postponements were all for United States-based teams.
For Vancouver, the issue began Tuesday when Adam Gaudette was pulled from practice after a positive test result, which was confirmed positive later that evening. Travis Hamonic joined Gaudette on the protocol list Thursday. By Friday, Alex Edler, Braden Holtby, Quinn Hughes, Zack MacEwen and Antoine Roussel were all added to the list as well, after additional testing and contract tracing.
Gaudette’s wife, Micaela, tweeted on Thursday: “My hubby isn’t in great shape but I’m taking good care of him!”
Micaela Gaudette also tweeted: “A human being gets sick with a virus we don’t know much about and y’all are angry at him because you can’t watch a hockey game.”