Jamie Nye: WHL chooses vaccine requirement over incentives

I’m intrigued to see the Canadian Hockey League now take a country wide approach by requiring vaccinations for all players, coaches, scouts, managers, athletic therapists and on and off ice officials.

There was one noticeable absence from those requiring vaccines; the billet families.

But it makes complete sense. Billet families are hard to come by in some markets and they’re not easily replaceable if you’re going to put that caveat on there.

Think about Saskatchewan’s vaccine status of less than 70% of people fully vaccinated. You have to wonder how many billet mom’s and dad’s and brothers and sisters would be unable to host their junior hockey players if a vaccine was required of them.

It’s a bold move to see the WHL move to such a strict policy instead of incentives. The Canadian Football League continues to lag behind in vaccine rates among players with not one team over the 85% threshold.

The CFL has now incentivized the vaccine with looser guidelines for players with two jabs.

Those incentives have worked in the NFL. More teams are closing in on 100% vaccine rate – with no requirement necessary.