COVID-19 has hit the Sixers; what that means or doesn’t mean for the Flyers

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has dominated the news as the virus has turned into a pandemic rocking the entire world.

The sports world has not been spared either, as the NBA was the first league to be directly impacted last week with the last-minute cancellation of a Utah Jazz/Oklahoma City Thunder game due to a positive test from a Jazz player.

It has since spread to other leagues, with soccer feeling the impact as well as the NHL this week with the Senators announcing a positive test in their camp as well.

ESPN Insider Adrian Wojnarowski is always breaking NBA news, and these days his Woj Bombs are usually involving reporting positive coronavirus tests.

The latest news? The Flyers’ co-tenants are the latest team to feel the direct effects of the coronavirus with three members of the Sixers organization testing positive.

The Sixers decline to go into further detail, and we’re bound to find out just who the parties are (likely from Woj himself), but that’s not paramount in any event.

Ever since the NBA first reported the positive tests coming from the Jazz (and then the Nets and so on), there’s been open speculation as to the impacts on the other teams in direct contact from that chain.

Both the Jazz and Nets played common opponents with the Sixers leading up to the positive tests, and the Sixers hosted the Pistons just a few days after the Jazz/Thunder game was cancelled.

That means that the coronavirus could very well have found it’s way to the Wells Fargo Center, and a deep clean took place not long after the Pistons were in town no less. The Flyers share the arena with the Sixers, but neither team practices there and the Flyers are only present for game days at the Farg.

Further, the Flyers played in the arena on March 10 in a 2-0 loss against the Bruins, but the Sixers’ matchup with the Pistons was a night later. The Flyers surely didn’t return to the arena and were off on their road trip to face the Lightning before the NHL season was suspended.

That would lead you to believe that the Flyers would at least not realistically be impacted by this news regarding the Sixers, at least on paper. It’s no consolation, because this is a very serious and devastating virus, but at least perhaps leaves the Flyers unaffected in the short-term given their proximity to the Sixers.

We certainly hope that all those effected by the virus in the Sixers’ organization make a fast and fully recovery, as we do with everyone in the real world for that matter.

From all of us at BSH, keep following the CDC guidance by washing your hands, maintaining social distancing, and self-isolating.

This thing isn’t messing around, we just want to get back to a semblance of normalcy...whenever that might be.

Good day and good hockey, Flyers fans.