Sicko mode

The GIST: COVID-19 continues to have an impact on the sports world, and this weekend, it took out one of its first major international events: the IIHF Women’s World Championship.

No way! Why?: The tournament, which features the top national women’s hockey teams from around the world, was set to take place from March 31st to April 10th in Halifax and Truro, Nova Scotia. Though Canada hasn’t seen a huge spread of the virus like in other countries, the event organizers decided not to risk it and cancelled the tournament with less than a month to go before puck drop.

• This isn’t the first time this tournament has been cancelled: the Beijing-hosted 2003 event was cancelled due to the SARS outbreak. The IIHF has said that, pending IIHF Congress approval, the 2021 tournament will be held in Halifax and Truro.

Brutal! How are the North American professional leagues dealing?: The NHL will continue to play games with fans in attendance for the foreseeable future and have a contingency plan (which could affect playoffs) to roll out if needed. They’ve asked players to limit contact with fans and are considering closing locker rooms to the media, which, TBH, players are probably happy about anyway.

• Meanwhile, the NBA will decide by end of day tomorrow what their plan will be in the event of a pandemic (though we already know LeBron’s plans). And while the NFL is currently in the off-season, the NFL Draft, set for April 23rd to 25th in Las Vegas, will go on, in spite of predicting a significant decrease in the expected 750,000-person crowd.

Yikes. Anything else?: A few more cancellations (you can find a running list here), including the alpine skiing World Cup finals in Northern Italy, where American skiing queen Mikaela Shiffrin was supposed to make a return after missing a month, and the Arctic Winter Games, which were scheduled to start on March 15th and feature over 2,000 international athletes.

• The Summer Olympics are still a go (for now, anyway) but the torch lighting ceremony, which will bring the Olympic flame from Athens, Greece, to Tokyo, Japan, has been downsized. We’re really hoping, for so many reasons, that the Games remain unaffected. There are still four months to go, so wash your hands and cross your fingers!