The Boston Bruins are set to play the San Jose Sharks on March 21. But will the game actually take place as scheduled?
The event is coming into question after Santa Clara County banned events set to have 1,000+ attendees for the next three weeks. As Maggie Angst of The Mercury News details, that includes Sharks games.
The ban will apply to San Jose Sharks games and other events planned for San Jose’s SAP Center, but it will not be enforced at airports, shopping centers or any place where people are in transit, county officials said.
This will surely have an impact on the Bruins-Sharks game, but at the moment, the Sharks are still assessing their options, as detailed by Kevin Kurz of The Athletic.
Sharks beat writer Curtis Pashelka speculated that the Sharks could opt to play games at a neutral site or without fans present. Should the team choose the latter option, it could have a big impact on the players, as Patrice Bergeron spoke about earlier Monday.
“[Playing without fans has] been tossed around a little bit. I know they did that in Switzerland a little bit. I was talking to Jordan Caron [playing in Geneva] and that would be tough,” Bergeron said, per NBC Sports Boston's Joe Haggerty. “We often say that [the fans] are the Seventh Player and that’s who we are playing for. We’re playing for ourselves obviously, but it’s also the atmosphere and the energy. They are the ones that create it. That would be a big void. It would be tough. It would be really tough.”
At this point, it's unclear what the Sharks and the NHL's course of action will be, but NHL writer John Shannon said that the league is weighing four possible options.
This will certainly be something to watch in the coming days. But the Sharks and the league will likely have a plan of action soon, so the Bruins will have plenty of time to prepare for whatever that may be.
UPDATE (11:55 p.m. ET): The Sharks have released a statement confirming SAP Center won't host any games until March 17, and that they'll assess future events soon.