Coronavirus: Worsening numbers may keep San Jose Sharks on road past this month
The San Jose Sharks may have to stay away from Santa Clara County much longer than they had originally hoped.
The Bay Area region’s ICU bed availability reached record lows this week and local health officials fear the situation will only get worse — casting doubt on whether the Sharks will be able to return to San Jose and play games at SAP Center as scheduled early next month.
A three-week regional stay-at-home order that went into effect at 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 17 will remain in place for the foreseeable future as ICU bed availability, according to data available on the state of California’s COVID-19 website, fell to 3.0 percent Friday. That number would have to rise above 15 percent for the region’s stay-at-home order to be lifted.
Professional or collegiate contact sports in Santa Clara County are not allowed while the shelter order is in place. The Sharks’ first scheduled home games are against the rival Vegas Golden Knights on Feb. 1 and Feb. 3, less than four weeks away.
If the spread of COVID-19 doesn’t slow down and ICU bed availability in the region fails to improve, the Sharks will have no choice but to play home games at a location other than downtown San Jose. As of Thursday, a near-record 726 people were in Santa Clara County hospitals with the disease.
“We are at an unprecedented level of cases and hospitalizations coming out of the Thanksgiving surge,” Santa Clara County counsel James Williams said Wednesday during a news conference. “We are extraordinarily concerned about what might be coming in the next few weeks.”
The Sharks did not wish to comment on the possibility their first two scheduled home games would have to be played outside of San Jose.
Asked Friday how long can the NHL can wait before it decides it has to relocate the games that are scheduled to be played in San Jose in early February, Bill Daly, the NHL’s deputy commissioner, said in an email to this newspaper that. “We are in regular communication with the (Sharks) on the status of the situation. There are no impending “deadlines” for a decision to be made regard February 1 game.”
After Santa Clara County’s contact sports ban was extended, the Sharks announced Dec. 20 they were relocating their training camp to Scottsdale, Ariz. The camp began Dec. 31 and will last until Tuesday when final cuts are made.
The Sharks will remain in the Phoenix area as they begin the regular season next Thursday against the Arizona Coyotes at Gila River Arena in suburban Glendale.
The Sharks asked the NHL to front-load their schedule with road games, giving them a better chance to play more often in San Jose in the second half of the season. In the 56-game season, 14 of the Sharks’ first 18 games are on the road.
After they play the Coyotes on Thursday and on Jan. 16, the Sharks leave Arizona to play road games against the St. Louis Blues on Feb. 18 and 20, the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 22 and 24 and the Colorado Avalanche on Feb. 26 and 28.
At that point, if the Sharks still cannot play games in San Jose, it would likely make sense for them to return to Glendale to play those two games against the Golden Knights. The Coyotes are on the road that week, playing the Blues on Feb. 2 and Feb. 4.
After the Sharks’ games vs. Vegas, they are scheduled to play four more road games from Feb. 5-11, with two games in Anaheim followed by two in Los Angeles.
By that point, the Sharks may be starting their seventh week away from home.
From a competitive standpoint, being away from San Jose for so long would present an unprecedented challenge to a Sharks team that wanted to get off to a fast start this season to increase their chances of making the playoffs.
For the Sharks, it might be equally as difficult to deal with from a personal standpoint.
Several Sharks coaches and players arrived in Arizona on Dec. 30, leaving family and friends behind. Already it’s been tough for most to be away from loved ones for this long, especially the players who have become new fathers in the last year or so.
“I still haven’t quite come to terms that I actually have a daughter,” said Sharks forward Stefan Noesen, whose daughter is now about six weeks old. “It’s new to me, it’s difficult for my wife. It’s usually three or four FaceTimes a day just so I can see her. I’m probably bugging her a little too much.
‘But it’s difficult. At the same time, I’m not the only person in this predicament. There’s other guys on this team who have multiple kids. But it is a little hard for us having a newborn right now.”