After the Oilers practice on Friday, Caleb Jones started out his Zoom media avail with a bit of a bombshell.
Good or bad — it shouldn’t be huge news anymore when a player tests positive for the COVID-virus. But, in the NHL world, only two people have confirmed their diagnosis, one of which probably didn’t want to if a Toronto Sun reporter hadn’t first outed him. There are so many cases now and athletes in every sport are contracting the disease that the shock and awe are gone.
Still, the disease is a serious one. It’s certainly nothing to take lightly and as rumors surrounded Jones who was left off the main ice and labeled “unfit to play” by the Edmonton Oilers organization, the defenseman knew there were whispers. So, he came right out and told everyone, ‘Yep, I had it’.
Jones opened the interview by saying he got tested as soon as he arrived from his off-season home in Dallas, was surprised because he had no symptoms, but went straight into isolation.
He told media who were on the video chat after practice:
“I had no symptoms — I was asymptomatic. I did my two-week isolation and tried to stay away from everyone. My first day back at the rink was actually Monday, the start of training camp. So, I was just the first few days getting back into it, and I was glad to be back full with the team (on Friday).”
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Will Other NHL’ers Follow Jones Lead?
Admittedly, Jones isn’t the first player to declare they had COVID-19. Auston Matthews did so earlier. Still, while not taking anything away from Matthews, one could argue that wasn’t exactly something he was happy to do.
Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun outed Matthews in an article some are arguing was less-than-ethical. Some policies are that media should not publicly announce a positive test unless the player first does. Matthews has said he wasn’t happy to have been put in that position.
As for Jones, he didn’t waste any time letting people know what was going on. Completely eliminating any doubt as to why he was labeled “unfit to play”, he put his cards out on the table. You’ve got respect that.
And, as more and more NHL’ers find themselves tagged with a similar label — sometimes for reasons that have nothing to do with the virus — it would be shocking not to see more players do what Jones has done.
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