It's been exactly one year of chaos

It was one year ago today that the hockey world came to a halt.

I was on my way to Halifax to watch the Thursday night quarterfinal game of the 2020 University Cup when news broke that the Canadian Hockey League had followed the rest of the sports world, "pausing" its season.

In a post about the pause, I wrote that "essentially all hockey in North America has paused with an unknown date of return. This has truly been a stunning 24 hours - and the most stunning part may be the fact that we have no idea when things will return to normal."

And that brings us to today, exactly one year later, where we still don't know when things will return to normal.

hello from the only hockey game on earth pic.twitter.com/fOf1Ge7GHv

— Jamie Tozer (@station_nation) March 12, 2020

That University Cup quarterfinal game went on as scheduled. My only memory of the game is running into a friend from the University of Ottawa men's team where he said "are people still doing this?" when we shook hands. I haven't shook a hand since. WILD.

Later that night, the rest of the University Cup was cancelled. It's remarkable just how quickly things shutdown and were eventually cancelled. On March 17, five days later, the QMJHL announced it would not be resuming regular season play. On March 23, the playoffs and Memorial Cup were called off.

Oddly, a lot of the same questions we had this time a year ago still apply. Will the QMJHL be able to crown a champion? Will there even be a Memorial Cup tournament? Things are looking more positive on both fronts lately but, as we've learned over this year, nothing is a sure thing.

We've certainly been fortunate in New Brunswick this year - even with the recent four-month shutdown of QMJHL contests - to be able to attend hockey games. But I bet most of you who have been to games this season will agree that it's just not the same as it normally is. Here's hoping that on March 12, 2022 there are 4,000+ fans watching the Sea Dogs inside TD Station.