What a century old tragedy tells us about playing sports through a pandemic like COVID-19

Social distancing has taken a massive toll on the sports world. Leagues are shut down. Teams lose money by the day. The entire industry is in trouble, at least for the immediate future.

Live sports could use a good comeback story. Rumors have been tossed around for two months — a basketball bubble in Las Vegas, the entire baseball season in Arizona, the NHL playoffs in a tiny New Hampshire town.

These are just fantasies, for now. But as states begin to ease social distancing restrictions during these coming weeks, the return of sporting events looms as an inevitable controversy.

The term “unprecedented times” is thrown around an awful lot nowadays. Yet one century ago, the world faced a similar crisis. A pandemic swept the world from 1918 until 1920, infecting nearly one-fourth of the global population. The Spanish Flu ultimately killed 50 million people.

Six professional baseball players and one umpire died of the virus in 1918, yet the sports world operated virtually unchanged. Within months of America’s first outbreak, the inaction of pro sports leagues led to a fully avoidable tragedy.

For more than 125 years, the Stanley Cup trophy has been awarded every spring to hockey’s champion. There are two exceptions — in 2005, when a lockout canceled the NHL season, and 1919. The historical decision made on April 1 of that year has been engraved on the Stanley Cup for more than a century now.

It reads, “1919: SERIES NOT COMPLETED.”

Toronto author Steve Chapelle spent years researching the 1919 NHL playoffs. His book, “No Decision: The 1919 Stanley Cup Final,” was released in October, just months before the coronavirus outbreak.

“It wasn’t just low-tech back then. It was no tech,” Chapelle said. . “That was before things like penicillin, so if you got an infection, you were on your own.”

In 1919, much like today, America was desperate for the distraction of sports. World War I had just ended, and the H1N1 virus was becoming an international crisis. Meanwhile, the NHL went on as planned, with a rapidly increasing number of players starting to get sick during the playoffs. This culminated in a surreal scene during Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

SICK PLAYERS

Players from the Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Metropolitans had fallen ill throughout the week. The Canadiens roster was particularly depleted. Joe Hall, one of the team’s best defensemen and the oldest player in pro hockey, was showing severe symptoms. Several other Canadiens had been ruled inactive by the fifth game.

At the conclusion of that game, players from both teams were literally sprawled around the ice, having collapsed from exhaustion. It was a moment unlike anything that has ever happened in sports.

Two uncertain days followed, with the Canadiens and Metropolitans scheduled to battle in Game 6. But both teams were battling the virus instead.

Montreal had just three healthy players remaining. On April 1, the 1919 Stanley Cup was officially canceled.

Joe Hall died four days later.

“Back then, when lifespans were shorter, [Hall] would be like an NHL player today in their mid-40s or older,” Chapelle says. Hall was 37 years old when he died. “They also didn’t have anywhere near the conditioning as athletes now.”

The world is much better-equipped to combat a pandemic now than it was a century ago. That said, the 1919 Stanley Cup Finals should still serve as a dire warning to sports leagues in 2020.

Even with strict measures in place to restart certain sports, such as league-wide quarantines and rapid testing, the risks might still far outweigh the rewards.

“It may be possible to restart leagues with aggressive repeat testing and social distancing protocols,” theorizes David Lee, an epidemiologist and University of Miami professor in the public health school. Lee has previously worked with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “However, the risk of infection will still remain given the close contact of competition. Participation would have to be strictly voluntary, with the support of governing unions. Leagues would have to agree to entire 14-day or longer team quarantines if infections spike, in order to control outbreaks.”

LOGISTICAL PROBLEMS

Is it possible to put an entire league on hold for at least two weeks if an outbreak occurs? Yes. But it would create a number of logistical problems, altering each team’s schedule and extending the season, not to mention the ensuing public relations nightmare of shutting down their league — again — due to the pandemic.

Even more concerning is the economic impact of an empty crowd. Some leagues profit more heavily than others on ticket sales, and every professional sports league and team is already guaranteed to lose money in 2020.

If there are no fans for an entire season, athletes could be forced to accept pay cuts. MLB players are already earning a prorated salary this year, based on however many games are squeezed into the schedule. Could they really afford to lose more money?

The vast majority of athletes across professional baseball, football, and basketball are still on track to make millions with a shortened season. For some other leagues, it gets a bit trickier.

Major League Soccer is projected to see “astronomical” losses from the fallout, according to Seattle Sounders owner Adrian Hanauer. On a Seattle talk show last month, Hanauer said that his team has already lost tens of millions, and that the league as a whole projects losses of more than $1 billion.

College sports are facing an even more dire problem. NCAA president Mark Emmert has already announced that football and other fall sports will likely be canceled if universities remain closed past August. The revenue loss from abandoning college sports through the fall is projected at nearly $4 billion.

Major League Baseball is in a different, yet still precarious situation. As league officials actively try devising a plan to play their 2020 season, the game’s stars are already speaking up on potential issues that could arise. One scenario involves placing all MLB personnel in one location, and forcing everyone to quarantine in their time off. The Angels’ Mike Trout, perhaps baseball’s best player, publicly identified several problems with the idea.

“My wife is pregnant, what am I going to do when she goes into labor?” he asked in an interview with NBC Sports. “Am I going to have to quarantine for two weeks after I come back? Obviously I can’t miss the birth of our first child... the mentality is we want to get back as soon as we can, but obviously it’s got to be realistic.”

OTHER PROPOSALS ON THE TABLE

Another scenario was pitched to the players’ union this week. The new proposal calls for a shortened season with teams based in their home city, before moving to a neutral site for the playoffs. MLB would have three realigned divisions — the East, Central, and West. This would limit travel for each team, with strictly regional matchups scheduled throughout the regular season.

There are two other popular American leagues affected by the crisis, the NBA and NHL. Both were less than one month from starting their playoffs when the outbreak hit.

The NBA has been discussing a playoff tournament held in one location. Las Vegas is the city being mentioned most frequently for this plan, but that plan is also not set in stone. Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman has volunteered the city as a coronavirus “control group” — effectively asking for Las Vegas to fully reopen, thus putting its citizens at risk. There was immediately a harsh public reaction to this idea, which might sway commissioner Adam Silver to consider other, safer alternatives, like Walt Disney World. Silver has advocated for a league-wide warmup period of 25 days, once health officials give the green light.

The NHL is eyeing a few possible locations for its postseason. According to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynksi, the playoffs will likely be held in two to four NHL arenas around the country. Those locations will be determined based on how hard certain areas are hit by COVID-19. Yet Dr. Vukosava Petrovic, a public health professor at Florida International University, asserts that many of the proposed ideas still don’t ensure the safety of players.

“Even when restrictions for some working remotely are over, and people are allowed back to work while observing precautions, social distancing cannot be observed in most large team sports,” Petrovic said. “This increases the risk of continued transmission.”

As for when fans might be able to watch sports in person again, health experts say the picture is even more bleak. Bill Hanage, a professor at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health, says the return of crowds can only happen with two key components — herd immunity and antibody testing.

“Crowds will only come back when there is population-level immunity,” Hanage explains. “That depends on how many people have been infected. We will get a better picture after the first surge is past us and we have antibody testing... it all depends on data not yet known.”

In Spain, health officials have already determined a rough timeline for reopening arenas and stadiums to fans. La Liga, the top Spanish football league, has already told its teams that their stadiums will be closed until 2021. The plan is to gradually reopen stadiums starting next January, depending on the country’s progress. Spain is one of the countries most affected by COVID-19, with nearly 250,000 cases and over 25,000 deaths.

There is another crucial step society must take before opening venues — antibody testing.

Antibody testing, or serology, can determine whether someone has already contracted and recovered from the virus. This crucial information can help governments determine the proper time to ease stay-at-home restrictions. Some mass antibody tests have shown that the coronavirus infected more people than originally thought, and therefore has a lower mortality rate. Yet for now, social distancing is still necessary to prevent a second bump in cases.

“Some modification of social distancing will remain for many more months,” asserts James Curran, a former assistant surgeon general at the CDC. Curran led one of the first AIDS task forces in 1981. “There may be variation in certain areas but places with large populations and high COVID-19 exposure will be the strictest.”

MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE

Among the people President Trump has enlisted on a task force to reopen America’s economy are Silver, UFC president Dana White, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Restarting sports, reopening the economy, going back to “normal” — these hot topics will dominate the foreseeable future. It is up to those influential figures, particularly Silver and other league commissioners, to make the right decision, which likely won’t be a profitable one.

That task force should use the Stanley Cup for inspiration, with a warning forever engraved in the trophy. “1919: SERIES NOT COMPLETED.” For now, the fate of the 2020 series remains unknown.

“There’s going to be a massive amount of money lost in the meantime,” Chapelle said. “Realistically, we don’t need sports, we want it. But when the day comes, there is going to be an explosion of relief.”

That day is still months away. But if sports return at the right time, it will be back for good — with no incomplete series and no more delayed seasons. Well...at least not until the next pandemic.