N.S. premier calls out Halifax Mooseheads for changing game date to beat COVID-19 rules
Global News
The Halifax Mooseheads were to play Acadie-Bathurst Friday, but the team has moved to game to Thursday "due to the recent restrictions announced by the Nova Scotia government."
The decision to move a Halifax Mooseheads hockey game up by a day to seemingly circumvent new COVID-19 restrictions is not sitting well with fans — or the premier’s office.
The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) team alerted ticketholders Tuesday that its Friday game against Acadie-Bathurst has been moved one day earlier to Thursday.
According to a statement posted on their Facebook page, which has comments limited, the decision was “due to the recent restrictions announced by the Nova Scotia government.”
The province has been recording triple-digit new cases of the virus for the past few days. On Tuesday, there were 127 new cases and a backlog in contact tracing by public health.
On Monday, Nova Scotia announced 40 cases that are part of the growing St. Francis Xavier University outbreak were confirmed to be the Omicron variant. Dr. Robert Strang, chief medical officer of health, said it was expected many more cases to come would be the fast-spreading variant.
In response, the province said it was bringing in new restrictions as of this Friday. The new rules include gathering limits and masking rules.
For a venue like Scotiabank Centre, where the Mooseheads play, Friday’s restrictions will mean spectators will be placed into groups of 150 people. There can be multiple groups, so long as each group has a separate entrance, exit and washrooms.
Within those groups of 150 people, masking and physical distancing will be maintained, unless people are with their own household or a consistent group of 20.
