It wasn’t easy to cope without what was previously a constant
By Mo Hussain, Sports Reporter
It has been almost a year since every single sport in the world shut down, and I mean every… single… one. Professional sports shut down, college sports shut down, and even local gyms, arenas, and organized sports also essentially shut down.
The thing is, having one professional sport being taken away was something sports fans were kind of used to from time to time due some leagues having lockouts. When that would happen, some sports fans would either stop watching until their favourite league came back or would hop on to watch another sport. For example, when the NHL was going through a lockout in late 2012, some might’ve become more attentive to leagues like the NBA which was up and running. With the shutdown that happened last March, there was absolutely nothing to turn to as dealing with the pandemic was an issue across all sports.
Adjusting to that was quite difficult considering how entrenched sports can be for fans throughout the year. In this case, when COVID-19 was classified as a pandemic in March, that time of the year is usually when teams in the NBA and NHL are getting ready for the playoffs. It was odd not to have that in March and the year that followed.
Losing the opportunity to play sports or get a workout outside particularly hurt. It’s one thing to lose entertainment that you just watch on your phone or television. It’s another to lose an outlet that gives you both a physical and mental release from all the stresses in your day-to-day life. Losing something like being able to go to the basketball court and join in on a pick-up game, or even losing going to a nearby indoor gym to lift weights was hard for many people.
Even if some gyms or parks were open, having the threat of a (at the time) unknown virus looming in the back of your mind made it quite difficult to play a sport or get a workout with peace of mind.
Fast forward to today, and although arenas aren’t being packed to watch professional sports, and one can’t really play a game of pick-up basketball due to social distancing, it’s still good to have at least something that resembles life pre-pandemic.
Looking back, it has made me a lot more grateful to have professional sports to watch and have allocated places to get active.
