There are stages of coping with the coronavirus shutdown, at least from this perspective:
1. Frustration
2. Fatigue
3. Fatalism
You might know the latter feeling, the one where there's no finish line in sight, so we find peculiar comfort in caustically pronouncing that there'll never, ever be one. That we're doomed forever. Or at least for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, that feeling.
The one that took root, for so many of us, on that fateful March 12 in Columbus when the Penguins were sent packing without playing.
More than a month later, I asked Kris Letang, maybe the most world-aware of anyone on the roster, if he could've conceived after that last practice at Nationwide Arena what would befall us all.
"We'd been following it for a little bit at my house," he replied on a conference call the team kindly arranged yesterday. "And, so, I was a little bit aware it was going to get hit hard in the U.S. Especially when we were out on the West Coast, it was something I was trying to be aware of. I was washing my hands, trying to stay away from other people the best I could. But in Columbus, you could see it in sports. More players were testing positive. I knew, eventually, it was going to hit us in Columbus."
Now that it has, of course, and we're all functioning with no running clock, Letang's become like the rest of us. The multimillion-dollar, NHL All-Star, franchise-record-holding defenseman's helping around the house. Or engaging in knee hockey with the prodigy Alex.
"Resting" was how, more than once, he worded it.
Unplugged from hockey was how I heard it.
And though it's 58 million percent understandable, that floored me. Really did. Because if the franchise's foremost fitness freak, one of its most passionate performers, could unplug in any capacity -- "Keeping up with my cardio, trying to stay in shape" was as far as he'd go -- then that tells me he's silently a lot like the rest of us in wondering if/when we'll all start winding up again.
Asked what life was like in this setting, Letang answered, ""It's tough. Everybody knows that hockey is what I love to do. But there's more than hockey to this situation."
Asked what form the NHL might take if/when it restarts, "It's so tough to tell."
If I had to assign one of those three stages of coping up there to Letang, he'd be a good, solid No. 2 right now with Fatigue, not yet teetering toward No. 3 with Fatalism.
The full-blown No. 3 was on display in another call Monday, this with another All-Star defenseman, Drew Doughty of the Kings.
"I don't see how this season is going to return. I really don't," Doughty spoke on that call. "We have no idea when this virus is going to be over. We're all kind of just sitting at home, just hoping to return to the season or hoping to watch the playoffs return. But we're just sitting here, waiting, working out, being ready to return at any point."
That's when he dropped the first real bomb of any of these calls to date.
"I think the NHL would have to make some kind of decision on that soon, and it seems like it's pretty tough to resume the season or the playoffs."
If any other player had thought such a thing, he was the first to verbalize it.
"It's what's going on in the whole world," Doughty continued. "I mean, everything just keeps getting delayed even more, with lockdowns and things like that. People are dying, with more every day. I don't see how or when we're going to be able to make a decision to return to the season. And then when that comes into play, you have to figure out all the logistics after that. So it seems very, very hard to be able to do. But us players are going to be ready for whatever."
Now, a critical footnote here: Doughty's one of the game’s louder mouths, both on and off the ice. A born chirper.
Oh, and another: When Doughty was asked if he might feel differently about the NHL's outlook if his Kings weren't hopelessly out of playoff contention, he laughed and came back, "Yeah, for sure."
But the point stands: That fatality, that doom and gloom, does set in.
As Letang acknowledged regarding the physical challenges to a restart, "The longer it drags, the harder it'll be," but that's got to apply to the mental challenge, as well.
They're professional heroes, larger than life to their fans and followers, often larger than life in their actual feats. But they're also human. And I'm voicing all this today solely to underscore that all this uncertainty, all this ... well, fear is a fair word, I'd think ... can bring down the best of them. Which it undoubtedly has already in countless cases.
I shared with readers the other day running into Dominik Simon on the street. Not to recklessly play psychoanalyst or whatever, but he wasn't himself. Super-friendly and everything, naturally, but not himself. He was worried. He had no answers. Nor even questions.
People like me keep asking these guys about staying in shape, about resuming throwing fastballs and running routes and skating, and it's feeling clearer that those might be easiest of all.
• Courtesy of one of our more famous subscribers:
One day, we will all be together again.
And when that day comes, our gratitude for those who helped get us there will overflow.
That, truly, is Doc Emrick's dream. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/Y7r5cGxBWP
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) April 12, 2020
• Anyone seeking a hockey-based pick-me-up, Mike Sullivan had a one-on-one talk with our Dave Molinari yesterday, and it came complete with a few quality Sully-isms. Also, a rather optimistic outlook on health.
• The Sabres became the latest professional team to institute heavy layoffs and furloughs -- 21 of the former, 104 of the latter -- in what's fast becoming a trend. In the NHL alone, seven teams are known to be paying all employees, nine have had layoffs or furloughs, and 15 haven't yet made anything clear.
To the best knowledge of our staff, all three Pittsburgh teams are continuing to pay all employees. Maybe the time will come they can't anymore, but it speaks well that they're starting to stand out in this regard to date.
Oklahoma's Jalen Hurts. - AP• Mel Kiper's brand used to be synonymous with the NFL Draft, though serious football fans have long since turned toward more comprehensive, more accurate sources.
Also, harder-working.
Because if Kiper could bring himself to attach his byline to a mock draft projecting the Steelers to take a quarterback, Oklahoma's Jalen Hurts, with their top pick, then he's just laid out his laziness for all to see. And if there's a more damning term for anyone in any line of work, I'm not familiar with it.
That's what it is, too. Because it wouldn't have involved more than a simple Google search to turn up voluminous, compelling material about the Steelers' needs, their impassioned statements of support for Mason Rudolph and a lot else. Rather than lazily explaining the Hurts pick, as Kiper did, that "he fits in Pittsburgh, where neither Mason Rudolph nor Devlin Hodges showed much while filling in for Ben Roethlisberger, 38, last season."
What exactly makes Hurts fit in Pittsburgh?
Gee, it couldn't possibly be that the Steelers, by necessity, need to be built to win in 2020. And as such, a backup with NFL starting experience, an NFL arm and a complete understanding of the offense -- Rudolph has all three -- would be infinitely better equipped.
Nor that Hurts is seen as something of a project, particularly when it comes to throwing accuracy. If anything, he's viewed as more of a dual-threat type who, in hypothetically stepping in for an injured Roethlisberger, wouldn't remotely fit into an offense that's built wholly around a 38-year-old pocket passer.
Not that I'll stop people from fussing over it.
• I'll be surprised if the Steelers take a QB in any round. Disappointed, too.
• Has it occurred to anyone yet that Troy Polamalu, Bill Cowher, Donnie Shell and the entire Pro Football Hall of Fame class this summer almost certainly will be robbed of the black and gold swarm that'd been expected to descend on Canton?
Yeah, sorry. Hate to be that guy.
No matter how soon some restrictions are lifted, it's borderline unthinkable that Ohio will allow a sudden sea of humanity.
• This just in: Troy is awesome.
It's not an act. It's not for public consumption. That's who he is to the core.
Steve Pearce at PNC Park in 2011. - GETTY• Congrats on a rise-above career to Steve Pearce, who formally retired yesterday a day after turning 37. Over 13 seasons in Major League Baseball, beginning in Pittsburgh, of course, he batted .254 with 91 home runs and 303 RBIs, though he'll be remembered most for being World Series MVP in 2018 for the Red Sox.
In addition to being one of the most straightforward athletes I've ever covered, Pearce might always remain my go-to in one specific area: Anytime I hear a manager or coach in any sport say something akin to 'All that guy does is capitalize on mistakes,' I'm reminded that Pearce was branded that way coming up through the Pirates' system. All he could do is hit mistake fastballs, they'd say again and again.
Well, all any of the greatest hitters in the game have done is hit mistake pitches. Same goes for running backs hitting glaring holes. And hockey shooters pouncing on goaltenders' holes.
Pearce swung at mistake fastballs as if he hated them. That was never a shortcoming, always a skill.
• There's no reason to not have golf once there's the tiniest trace of reopening. None whatsoever.
BREAKING: The PGA Tour will announce this week that it plans to resume its season June 11-14 at Colonial, according to multiple sources. Here is what the schedule is expected to look like when it gets released: https://t.co/J9v1ey9eEU
— Brian Wacker (@brianwacker1) April 15, 2020
• Reminder: Anyone who needs help through this crisis or might want to offer help, that's still on the table. We're all stuck on this floating mudball together, no matter how separated it might feel in the moment.
• We'll get there. We will.
