David Briggs: Don't want the vaccine? Good luck playing in the ECHL

Oct. 17—When unvaccinated Toledo Walleye forward J.C. Campagna recently announced that he won't play this season, he suggested the decision was all but made for him.

Now, we know what he means.

I got my mitts on the ECHL's just-finalized protocols for the season, and to suggest the league — in agreement with the union that represents its players — is urging teams to vax up would be like calling the Arctic a bit crisp.

The 27 pages of light reading amount to an unofficial mandate.

Don't want the coronavirus vaccine? If you're a player, that's fine, but be prepared to clear your social calendar (and your pockets).

While vaccinated players will face few restrictions, those who aren't will be bubble men.

That means no bars. No clubs. No restaurants. It means keeping at least six feet away from teammates "at all times" off the ice, sitting alone on bus trips ("all windows ... should be open if possible"), and staying alone at hotels. It means yo-yoing in and out of the lineup, because each time a member of the traveling party gets the virus, any unvaccinated player will have to register three straight days of negative tests to rejoin the team.

Oh, and those tests? He'll have to cover the costs of them, along with those of twice-weekly rapid antigen tests. He'll also have to pay half the cost of his hotel rooms, a consequence of not being able to have a roommate.

Add it all up and, in a league in which players toil for love more than money — the average salary is $680 per week — the math is unforgiving.

"It's very possible you could spend more than you make in a given week," Campagna said.

Yes, there might be some weeks a player will pay to play professional hockey.

Call it coronavirus fantasy camp.

Now, we see why the Walleye — and likely almost every other ECHL team — will be 100 percent vaccinated this season, and why Campagna, 28, will be putting his pucks dream on hold.

All I can say is ... good for the ECHL.

I respect Campagna's right to decline the vaccination, and, in a way, I admire the strength of his conviction. This isn't Kyrie Irving making $19 million to not play this season. This is a player truly forgoing his livelihood, telling us, "I miss the game every day and, as soon as it becomes possible for me to play again while I maintain my religious and health freedoms, I'll be back on the ice."

Let us also acknowledge the hypocrisy of leagues that have War and Peace-length protocols for the players and no rules for the fans who will be packed together in the stands. At Walleye games, for instance, spectators will neither have to be vaccinated nor masked. The same will hold true for most fans at Red Wings, Pistons, and Cavaliers games.

"We would encourage people to wear the masks," Walleye general manager Neil Neukam said, "but, at the end of the day, it still has to be the decision of the fan."

With due respect, says who?

But we digress.

As far as the players go, my personal choice is to respect the right of their employer (the ECHL) to implement rules that incentive the common good and the playing of a season with limited or no interruptions.

As we fight to end a pandemic in which 724,000 Americans have lost their lives to the virus, it's getting harder to empathize with those losing their jobs over the rejection of a vaccine that the medical establishment tells us is safe and effective.

We've said it before, but we all have the freedom of choice. This is America. What we don't have is the freedom of consequences. We don't have the right to decline the shot and learn, work, or play in settings that put others at greater risk, whether that be a college classroom, the office, or an ECHL locker room, where, like on any team, Walleye coach Dan Watson said, "The 'we' is greater than the 'me.'"

While Campagna made clear it was his decision to opt out — and the Walleye respected that choice — it's equally clear that playing would have been untenable, both financially and practically.

"The league and the [Pro Hockey Players' Association], the union, they're making it hard for anyone unvaccinated to even be part of the team," Watson said. "They're going to feel like outsiders. If anyone is unvaccinated in the league — and I don't think there are many — those coaches will have a tough job to try to get a team to jell and be cohesive.

"There are a lot of roster limitations, too. If anyone got COVID, if you're unvaccinated, that player would have to remain on the roster but he couldn't play for three days. So imagine going into a weekend and, all of the sudden, one of the guys who is vaccinated tests positive. That guy and the unvaccinated player are now removed from your locker room for three days, so now you're down two players for [three games in three nights], and that [unvaccinated player] has to remain on the roster. You can't replace him."

I asked Watson if there are any players in the league good enough to justify accommodating them.

"Great question," he said. "Depends on how you value them. In my opinion, at this level, there are a select few, a very select few. But those would be special, special circumstances."

Indeed, just take one more look at the ECHL's protocols, which are so detailed they feature a multi-step guide to using the lavatory on a plane. If an unvaccinated player needs to go to the bathroom, he must wait "several minutes" after its last use, wear a disposable glove, and close the lid before flushing.

He might also flush his team's season while he's at it.

First Published October 16, 2021, 3:04pm