Yahoo Finance WHL's Kelowna Rockets cleared to resume activities after negative COVID-19 tests
The Kelowna Rockets have been cleared to go back on the ice, after all the team members who tested positive in late March tested negative for COVID this week.
In a news release Tuesday, the Western Hockey League said the junior hockey team resumed activities on Wednesday.
The Rockets are scheduled to play the Prince George Cougars on Saturday at 7 p.m. PT at the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C.
Last month, the provincial health officer approved the WHL for games this season in bubble environments in Kamloops and Kelowna.
The Kamloops Blazers, Prince George Cougars, and Vancouver Giants are based in Kamloops. The Kelowna Rockets and Victoria Royals are based in Kelowna.
Players for the Kamloops Blazers and Kelowna Rockets are allowed to stay with billet families, while players from the three other teams will have to stay at hotels.
Kelowna Rockets president and general manager Bruce Hamilton says his players have been doing very well thanks to the care provided by billet families.
"They [billet families] have been real troopers for us and they've done a great job," Hamilton said Thursday to Chris Walker, the host of CBC's Daybreak South.
"It was great for them [players] to have other people around that they were spending time with, other than just being in a hotel waiting for time to run out."
Hamilton says before their first practice on Wednesday, his team's players had been exercising virtually during the isolation period to keep themselves physically fit.
"They were on Zoom fitness programs every day, usually twice a day," he said. "We would have some kind of a yoga class and then a fitness class."
Hamilton says the Rockets are excited at the opportunity to play but not at the Canadian Hockey League's announcement Tuesday that the 2021 Memorial Cup Junior Hockey Championships were being cancelled due to pandemic restrictions.
The 2020 Memorial Cup, scheduled to be held in Kelowna, was cancelled last year. The CHL says decisions regarding the hosting of the 2022 Memorial Cup will be made at a later date.
Hamilton says he hopes Kelowna will be considered as a host for the Memorial Cup next year. But more importantly, he says, this year his older players will at least have a last chance at some fun before graduating from the WHL.
"The majority of them will be moving on to Canadian universities next year," he said. "I want them to enjoy it and have some fun."
Tap the link below to hear Bruce Hamilton's interview on Daybreak South:
