If Canadians can’t watch a junior hockey practice livestream, the virus has won

Because there’s a lot of Canadian TV money invested in it, hockey’s World Junior Championships are still on track to take place at the end of the month. Canada is the host this year for the event that is, to our northern neighbours, analogous on the sports landscape to March Madness, and damn if they’re going to let a little deadly virus get in the way of some teenagers being showered with praise if they win, or taunted and booed until an entire country’s throat is sore if they lose.

Canadian media geeks out over the whole thing, including Team Canada’s training camp, which includes an annual tradition of extremely awkward interviews with kids who were among the top 40 players their age in their country, but not the top 20, and therefore got cut.

So, Wednesday night’s Red vs. White scrimmage at Canadian camp was a big deal. But as TSN’s Mark Masters reported, live video of the event was not available, “due to strict health restrictions.”

Really?

If you want to, right now, you can go watch live feeds of traffic in Edmonton, sharks at the aquarium in Toronto, or the view from a marine gas station in Vancouver.

Hockey Canada is saying that nobody can possibly set up a couple of remote cameras in an empty hockey rink and show the people the exciting action of…

…what was it again…

…teenagers playing an intrasquad game.

The excuse might be flimsier than the Rideau Canal ice in late March, but all’s well that ends well, eh?