Sports Talk: Now what do I write about? Not getting to rent a car?

Now what do we do for our March break? I wasn’t planning to go anywhere except Whitehorse.

I won’t bore you with my letdowns … some people on Twitter who know I don’t populate on Twitter will simply complain about me posting a half-page in this sports section about how I couldn’t rent a car or stuff like that.

Anyway, the Arctic Winter Games were cancelled and 3,000 or so souls will have to spend an extra week at home or whatever it is they plan to do to fill the void. It sucks because I know everyone was looking forward to it: the sports, the socialization, the late-night stuff. All clean, of course … unless you’re at that age where you don’t mind being picked up off of a cold sidewalk in downtown Nuuk, Greenland after last call.

I’ll tell you about that when you’re older.

I get that it was the responsible thing to do because of all the fear surrounding Coronavirus (COVID-19). It’s nasty business and I hope it gets solved sooner rather than later. Problem is it’s only going to get worse, it seems, and while I disagree with the cancellation of the Games, it was inevitable.

I was doing some reading about everything that’s been cancelled/postponed because of COVID-19 and it’s a rather lengthy list. Everything from archery to soccer to hockey to sumo – yes, sumo – has been affected in some shape or form. Not a lot to make fun of or talk about in this space and that should make some of you happy. No chance to commit wrongthink.

Curling, though, seems to be bucking the trend. The World Women’s Curling Championship is going ahead in B.C. (a province where there are several cases of COVID-19 and, sadly, one death) with … wait for it … Italy and China competing. If there are other major international events shutting down with little to no cases of the illness present, why would the World Curling Federation let this go on?

I mean, you’d think any international sporting event involving the two hardest-hit countries would be canned, right? Must be all the booze or something. We all know curlers love their post-game refreshments.

Darts is still plugging along, at least in England. The Professional Darts Corporation has had to postpone its upcoming events on the European mainland – Germany and the Netherlands – but it’s added a couple of extra tournaments in Milton Keynes to make up for it. Insert your jokes about self-sanitizing here.

And so comes the next question: what will happen in the near future? We know there will be no hockey, no basketball, no soccer, no sumo, no anything. I guess we should all just sit at home and wait for the big one, right?

No.

This is where we need to understand that life will go on. I lived in Toronto during the SARS outbreak of 2003 and it’s turning into the same sort of hysteria we’re facing now. Yes, people will get sick and yes, some people will perish because of it. You don’t want that to happen but it will.

You go out and support your local businesses. You go out and enjoy a meal with your family. You go out and shop like you would on a normal pay day. You go out and enjoy what your community has to offer. You go to community events and mingle with people. You socialize because that’s what we do. You don’t let something like this take over your life. You take the precautions and you live life like it’s a Monday morning.

In short, we will be fine. We’ll get through this and things will return to normal.
In the meantime, I’ll whine to myself about not being able to rent a car.