The American Hockey League has followed behind the NHL in pausing the 2019/2020 season for the time being due to COVID-19 aka coronavirus pandemic. There haven’t been any direct cases related to the American League but following NBA player Rudy Gobert testing positive everything started to take a turn. The leagues all have indirect connections in sharing facilities in some way between teams sharing a building, visiting team locker rooms, officials, and there’s also arena staff as well.

San Jose, San Antonio, and Cleveland have arenas shared by NBA and AHL teams. Winnipeg and San Jose have arenas shared by AHL and NHL teams. There’s another 11 arenas that are shared by NBA and NHL teams. With travel, player movement, and much more connecting all of the sports in some way it was time to suspend the seasons and it was done so without objections.

There’s no time line set for when play will pick back up again but the goal is to resume play to finish the season and not cancel it completely.

AHL teams will likely be given the same guidance as NHL teams:

• No travel allowed.
• No meeting.
• No practices.
• Go home and stay home.

Rochester was scheduled to practice starting at 12pm Thursday but it was cancelled following the directive of the NHL to cancel all practices and morning skates. That also cut off media availability. There are 14 regular season games remaining on the schedule for the Amerks.

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NHL statements…