{"id":129731,"date":"2021-10-20T11:00:13","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=129731"},"modified":"2021-10-20T01:06:42","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T06:06:42","slug":"this-week-in-nchc-hockey-after-false-positive-during-2021-ncaa-tournament-st-cloud-state-doing-everything-we-possibly-could-to-make-sure-we-can-play-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2021\/10\/20\/this-week-in-nchc-hockey-after-false-positive-during-2021-ncaa-tournament-st-cloud-state-doing-everything-we-possibly-could-to-make-sure-we-can-play-this-season\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in NCHC Hockey: After false positive during 2021 NCAA tournament, St. Cloud State doing ‘everything we possibly could to make sure we can play’ this season"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson goes over strategy with his team during a recent practice (photo: SCSU Athletics).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Plenty of talk surrounded Michigan and St. Lawrence earlier this year, when COVID-19 cases saw those teams withdraw from the 2021 NCAA tournament before it began.<\/p>\n

Those moves soon became public information. What wasn\u2019t public at the time of the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, though, was that St. Cloud State briefly worried over a false positive test on the morning of the Huskies\u2019 national championship game against Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

In an interview Tuesday with USCHO, St. Cloud State coach Brett Larson said the Huskies\u2019 players and staff for this season are fully vaccinated. What happened in the hours before SCSU\u2019s 5-0 defeat to UMass hadn\u2019t been forgotten.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor an hour or 45 minutes, while they were doing the second (polymerase chain reaction, or PCR) test, our whole team was living that fear of it potentially ruining your season,\u201d Larson recalled. \u201cThankfully, it turned out to be a false positive, but I think everybody remembers the fear of not having the opportunity to play in that game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe that carried over to us this (season), where we want to do everything we possibly could to make sure we can play. (The false positive) wasn\u2019t public at the time. They test you every morning, and they tested us on the morning of the national championship game, and one of the tests came back positive, but luckily there was protocol to do a second PCR test, and that came for us to know the first was a false positive, but I\u2019ll tell you what, that player was sitting there 45 minutes, sweating.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you imagine the pressure on that player, to think that maybe he was the one that potentially could cost the team the season?\u201d<\/p>\n

Just any team might have been thinking all season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the untold story is the anxiety that, every week, three times a week, a kid was feeling like he could cost, through no fault of his own, his team the ability to play that weekend. That was a lot of stress on those kids last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never blamed the kids, unless we\u2019d find out they had gone to a party or done something different, which our guys didn\u2019t, but they could do everything right and still get (COVID-19), and they were all sweating out those tests every week, not wanting to be a guy who costs their team the opportunity to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for having the Huskies vaccinated, Larson feels that NHL teams\u2019 initiatives helped. Also, shortly after SCSU\u2019s 2021 fall semester began, a representative from a local hospital system was invited in to discuss the vaccine with the Huskies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t try to twist anybody\u2019s arm, and I felt a little uncomfortable about that, but we tried to get as much education as we could, and let them make their own decision,\u201d Larson said. \u201cFortunately for us, the guys were willing to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that time (of the meeting with the hospital representative), we probably still had about a third of the team that maybe wasn\u2019t vaccinated yet, and maybe one or two staff members, but through the education part of it and, let\u2019s be honest, it\u2019s the fact that we wanted to do the best we could to protect our season, I think those two things motivated the guys and the staff to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson got vaccinated early in the summer, ahead of a recruiting trip to Europe that he had been considering but, in the end, didn\u2019t take.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always that little feeling of the unknown, and has there been enough research and that type of thing,\u201d Larson said, when asked if he had any concerns about getting the vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, the way I look at it, when you talk to the team doctors and you talk to the people in the hospital system, and they\u2019re professionals in that field, I guess I feel like they know a lot more about it than I do. That\u2019s what gave me some comfort to do it. You know what, if they want to ask me about a power play, I can tell them, because maybe doctors don\u2019t know, but when it comes to medical stuff, I\u2019m going to trust the doctors more than my own opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larson knows that breakthrough cases of COVID-19 are still possible for those that are vaccinated. Still, his team is doing its part to try and stop the streak of pandemic-affected college hockey seasons at three.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still always that worry (about breakthrough cases) in the back of your mind, but I think also there is that feeling like, as long as you\u2019ve been vaccinated, and as long as you\u2019re being as smart as you can to avoid real large crowds and not putting yourselves in certain situations, I just don\u2019t know how much else you can do at this point,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that if you can control what you can control, then at least your worries are a little bit less.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plenty of talk surrounded Michigan and St. Lawrence earlier this year, when COVID-19 cases saw those teams withdraw from the 2021 NCAA tournament before it began. Those moves soon became public information. What wasn\u2019t public at the time of the Frozen Four in Pittsburgh, though, was that St. Cloud State briefly worried over a false […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":129732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,4,1],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[810],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in NCHC Hockey: After false positive during 2021 NCAA tournament, St. Cloud State doing 'everything we possibly could to make sure we can play' this season - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Plenty of talk surrounded Michigan and St. Lawrence earlier this year, when COVID-19 cases saw those teams withdraw from the 2021 NCAA tournament before\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129731\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Week in NCHC Hockey: After false positive during 2021 NCAA tournament, St. Cloud State doing 'everything we possibly could to make sure we can play' this season - 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