It's getting late

Michael Hawkins/Saint John Sea Dogs

Even though it's starting to feel like playoff weather, there's still some regular season to play in this bizarre 2020-21 campaign.

Sunday's Saint John Sea Dogs game will match the latest date the team has ever played a regular season contest. Saint John played its final regular season game on March 21 in 2015 and, ironically, would have done the same last season if not for COVID making its arrival.

The Sea Dogs have two games scheduled beyond this weekend - Friday, March 26 in Moncton and Saturday, March 27 at TD Station. The regular season will presumably stretch beyond that, but how far beyond is unknown.

The 12 Quebec-based clubs begin a sixth round of protected environments tonight and conclude on March 25. There have been reports that the league will hold at least one more round of protected environments, which presumably stretches the regular season into late April.

A regular season ending in late April certainly helps out the Maritimes Division clubs as that would ensure all six teams could play each other in the playoffs. The Atlantic Bubble is expected to reopen on April 19.

The league's previously announced playoff format would have the Maritime and Quebec teams separated until the league semifinals. How the logistics of that crossover will work is unclear... but having the top Maritime team stay in Quebec until their season ends seems like the only scenario. We'll see. There's still plenty of time between now and then.

Shawinigan reporter Steve Turcotte tweeted this week that the Memorial Cup is likely to be cancelled soon. Obviously that's unfortunate, but it probably helps the QMJHL out since they won't have to stretch the season/playoffs out to line up with the WHL and OHL.

Il faut s'attendre à ce que le tournoi de la coupe Memorial soit annulé d'ici une semaine. La LHJMQ se retrouve seule pour danser. Il y aura des champions dans la LHJMQ, mais à moins d'un énorme changement de dernière minute, ils vont devoir se contenter de la Coupe du Président.

— steve turcotte (@steveturcotte) March 16, 2021

A few other news and notes:

• The Baie-Comeau Drakkar were forced to pull out of the Sherbrooke protected environment because of a couple positive COVID-19 tests. So the Phoenix and Chicoutimi Sagueneens will just play each four times instead.
• The Kelowna Rockets have reported one positive COVID-19 test. Fortunately is was caught in the initial round of testing before team activities began.
• The WHL's US Division began play on Thursday night. Only the BC Division, which is scheduled to begin next weekend, has yet to start playing.
• Still nothing official has been said about the OHL's restart, but Ontario's sports minister believes it's coming together.