Avalanche off-day notebook: No more locker-room access because of coronavirus

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Well, this tweet from Elliotte Friedman just came down:

Starting today, @NHL will close dressing rooms to media, on recommendation of Centers for Disease Control (@CDCgov) in effort to stop the spread of coronavirus. NBA, MLB + MLS are expected to follow. Media availabilities will be conducted in formal press conference area.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) March 7, 2020

What are my thoughts on this, as a media member? Hey, whatever the disease specialists think, I guess. I mean, hockey teams and reporters travel all the time. We’re probably in a subgroup of people who are higher risk of getting an infectious disease like the coronavirus. I’m not aware of anyone in the NHL having it yet – nor of any reporter having it yet – but better to be preventative I guess.

Where tomorrow’s Avs game is – San Jose, in Santa Clara County – is where a larger number of cases than most areas have been found. A top health official in Santa Clara County wanted the Sharks-Wild game to be canceled the other night, but the Sharks went on with the game anyway.

It would not shock me if we don’t have a game tomorrow between the Avs and Sharks. Stay tuned. If so, obviously I’ll have come out here for nothing. Them’s the breaks.

About the Avs: they won’t practice today. The top injured guys are still skating back home. None of them, however, will join the Avs for either game left on this trip, which started out with that dismal 6-3 loss last night in Vancouver.

The injuries started to catch up with him for one night, at least. The defense and goaltending and, well, pretty much everything, wasn’t good last night.

Too bad, too, because a win would have put the Avs in first place in the Western Conference, as St. Louis lost to New Jersey.

This coronavirus may play havoc with the schedule from here on out, and you wonder what will happen with the playoffs if this thing really spreads.

Interesting times we’re living in…