rockstaryuzu Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 Those who wish to, please join in: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songster01 Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 So this is the typical "advance notice" I've seen before, so take it as a strong signal that the Canadian border will remain closed to the US for non-essential visitors, at least until late June: https://twitter.com/globeandmail/status/1260714456784355328?s=20 Again, I have family and many relatives in the US, but I absolutely support our government in keeping the border shut. Hopefully, it will remain shut for some time, given the lack of competence of the US federal government and the too-early re-opening in many US states. Note, it's possible US elite skaters who train in Canada, like Jason Brown, may be granted exceptional status after rinks re-open in the GTA. Probably watching what is done especially re: foreign winter athletes in other sports might signal when that might happen. ETA: By this I mostly mean hockey, given how popular it is and given that many players are from abroad. So I expect the temptation would be to grant exceptional status to foreign players who went home when Canadian rinks closed. If they do that for hockey, then less popular ice sports might also request the same treatment. After behaving better than I expected, our premier in Ontario has given us two examples of "do as I say, not as I do" and has been hinting about further re-opening tomorrow, which has me worried about things domestically, not least because the top doctor in Ontario said we were not ready for further steps at the moment. We've made several baby steps over the past couple weeks, so I hope we hold the line for 2-3 weeks and only then move ahead if community spread case numbers continue to go down. I'd rather we go slow and not end up moving backwards thanks to over-hastiness. The more changes we make in a short period, the harder it will be to figure out which were causing problems. If COVID-19 is in the community in Toronto, we could potentially spread it elsewhere and I don't want other places to suffer because of us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TallyT Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 The two major sports codes in Australia are NRL (rugby league) and AFL (Australian Rules football), and their seasons, being winter sports, were due to start/had just started when the COVID and the government restrictions hit; they were already financially strapped through overspending and are desperate to start up again, for both audiences and TV/streaming income. I believe AFL are trying to start up matches without audiences by mid-June, not sure about NRL, but as both are contact sports, I imagine the eyes of sports administrators all over the world will be watching.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songster01 Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 One X factor here re: fs would be for rinks that support both hockey and fs. IIRC only curling really takes place at TCC, so it would be easy there to just limit the ice to elite figure skaters. Other rinks, like the Sixteen Mile Sports complex where ACI has been held the last few years, support both hockey team(s) and elite fs. At least some have multiple rinks so some kind of compromise could be worked out. How much that would limit ice time for fs in specific rinks I don't know. I follow a number of local skaters like Roman, Nam, and Matt Markell, so it will be interesting to see how things work out for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liv Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 So, it looks like Ontario is beginning their first stage of recovery on Tuesday. In the list released today, our premiere has allowed sports that require physical distancing like golf, tennis, and figure skating, to begin (they were all specifically mentioned). Hopefully this means good things for TCC and other figure skating clubs. He said that they will be watching numbers carefully and will shut down again quickly if there are any increases. This weekend is a holiday weekend in Canada, Victoria Day. It was supposed to be beautiful and sunny and my worry was that people might try to flout the rules a bit... but instead nature has provided the barrier to any of that. It will be rainy, almost all the time... hopefully this means more people keeping to themselves and keeping those infection rates down.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Songster01 Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 10 hours ago, liv said: So, it looks like Ontario is beginning their first stage of recovery on Tuesday. In the list released today, our premiere has allowed sports that require physical distancing like golf, tennis, and figure skating, to begin (they were all specifically mentioned). Hopefully this means good things for TCC and other figure skating clubs. He said that they will be watching numbers carefully and will shut down again quickly if there are any increases. This weekend is a holiday weekend in Canada, Victoria Day. It was supposed to be beautiful and sunny and my worry was that people might try to flout the rules a bit... but instead nature has provided the barrier to any of that. It will be rainy, almost all the time... hopefully this means more people keeping to themselves and keeping those infection rates down.... Sadly I have to applaud our most horrible spring in a long time. If it must happen, let it happen when people need to avoid each other as much as possible. But I also want to be able to go outside someday without a coat/jacket/hat. So hopefully people will not get lax, though almost every clear night I hear what sounds like a group or two of teens/20-somethings in our neighborhood park late at night when I walk our dog before bed. Something tells me they can't all be siblings! I guess I'll see how people behave at our local small grocery tomorrow. If it's still too busy there I think we'll have to bite the bullet and shop at a Loblaw's where I hear things are tightly controlled. We have a few cloth masks but those should be "in addition" to social distancing not a "now you can get up close and personal for free" card. Hopefully they will make masks mandatory in shops. Though they may fear the nonsensical anti-mask violence appearing in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sombreuil Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 I agree. The UK had a warm April, which made lockdown very hard for people cooped up in small flats or crowded houses without gardens. I live in an area with a lot of quite dense housing- blocks of flats, streets of terraced houses, and we weren’t supposed to drive to get exercise in other parts of the city so our local open spaces became very crowded. I’m lucky enough to have a garden so just stayed put. Now it’s permissible to drive to other places for a walk, but the weather is very chilly, so hopefully the slight relaxation of the rules won’t backfire on us too fast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunna Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 The weather is great factor. It was very warm at first days of May, also long holidays, so people took walks on the streets with trees or near their homes, mostly with family, but I also saw groups of younger ones clearly not family. I really can understand it, cuz it's impossible to be stuck in the flats with no fresh air. I wish authorities could open big parks, you can make entry by online appointment at least once a week, so not everybody will go at the same time. But now it's a little colder though mostly sunny, so less people are walking around. I find the main problem is still a lot of people in transport, as some work places are closed but a lot are open and that at shops distancing is controlled poorly. At least masks are mandatory now in such places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ralucutzagy Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Well, from today on, our govt will begin to relax the restrictions. Beauty saloons, dental care clinics, parks, zoos, museums and lots of small shops will start reopening with lots of protection measures, wearing masks and gloves will become mandatory in closed spaces, social distancing is still on. The pubs, coffee shops, restaurants are still closed but we are allowed to go out where ever and when ever we want (in our own town) without the write statement as long as we follow the rules, after 2 months of lockdown... wow, lol, feels kinda weird ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liv Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Ontario had its coldest April ever (or close to it, I think), so I think that has played a huge part... and May hasn't been much better. We even had snow this week, so that encourages staying home and doesnt foster much dissent. I read that people are kind of nervous to leave their homes, even if allowed.... but when it hits 20C I think that goes away quickly. The pandemic will be a major topic of study for decades. Not only health and medicine related (and the sciences involved), but for psychology, sociology, economics... the list goes on. I wonder what hindsight will be on 2020... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mercedes Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 9 hours ago, ralucutzagy said: Well, from today on, our govt will begin to relax the restrictions. Beauty saloons, dental care clinics, parks, zoos, museums and lots of small shops will start reopening with lots of protection measures, wearing masks and gloves will become mandatory in closed spaces, social distancing is still on. The pubs, coffee shops, restaurants are still closed but we are allowed to go out where ever and when ever we want (in our own town) without the write statement as long as we follow the rules, after 2 months of lockdown... wow, lol, feels kinda weird ... same here....but we got bars open too so yesterday morning I drank my 1st coffee (bar-made)in 2 months....and you're right it was a weird experience ...I also went for a walk in my town center and while shops are all closed ,bookstores are not so yep i spent some time browsing of course but again it felt like a total new thing LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstaryuzu Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 On 5/14/2020 at 12:59 AM, TallyT said: The two major sports codes in Australia are NRL (rugby league) and AFL (Australian Rules football), and their seasons, being winter sports, were due to start/had just started when the COVID and the government restrictions hit; they were already financially strapped through overspending and are desperate to start up again, for both audiences and TV/streaming income. I believe AFL are trying to start up matches without audiences by mid-June, not sure about NRL, but as both are contact sports, I imagine the eyes of sports administrators all over the world will be watching.... Honestly, I can't see how rugby could possibly come back right now unless all the players quarantine together for the duration of the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstaryuzu Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 On 5/14/2020 at 3:58 PM, liv said: It will be rainy, almost all the time... hopefully this means more people keeping to themselves and keeping those infection rates down.... It's been the coldest, crappiest spring weather Ontario has had in ages and I am so grateful for that. If we were having hot sunny weather right now, we wouldn't have a chance in heck of flattening this curve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sukigirl Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 What are the chances of ACI proceeding? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockstaryuzu Posted May 19, 2020 Share Posted May 19, 2020 On 5/16/2020 at 1:14 AM, Sukigirl said: What are the chances of ACI proceeding? It could, without spectators. The Ontario government has given permission for 'individual sports competitions without spectators' for sports like skating. However, there's still a 14-day quarantine for any arrivals in the country, so unless that's lifted, the list of potential competitors at ACI is likely to be short. In other news, I have officially tested negative...this time. Because of the way my job is doing daily screenings on all workers, I am sure I'll find myself back in the testing center again before all this is over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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