The New York Islanders have a new policy: get vaccinated against coronavirus or you’re not on the team.
Team President and General Manager Lou Lamoriello told reporters of his organization’s new approach on Tuesday, saying “We will not allow any player in our organization [to] participate unless they are vaccinated,” according to Audacy.
It’s a good approach. The New York Islanders want to contend this season, and they are going to spend about $85 million this year on players competing for them. The average player on the roster is a multi-millionaire. So yes, if the team wants to make them get vaccinated, it should have that right.
Players missing time due to injury and sickness hurts a franchise. It’s good that young, healthy men typically don’t have any serious problems with coronavirus, but it’s also good that a vaccine exists and can negate the negative effects of the virus. The vaccine also helps prevent infection, which means players will have a lower chance of missing time.
Outside the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball’s Boston Red Sox have felt the impact of players not getting vaccinated. The team has had many players miss time due to coronavirus infection and exposure this season. That includes starting pitcher Chris Sale, a perennial All-Star who admitted he’s not vaccinated. The team is in a tight race for an American League wild-card spot to make the playoffs. One of two wins/losses may decide the team’s fate this season. What if the Red Sox were 100% vaccinated? Fewer players likely would have gotten the virus, and maybe they’d have a win or two more than they have now. In a tight race, even one extra win could make a difference.
Professional sports teams already have an outsize influence on their players’ lives because of the money at stake. Members of the New York Yankees can’t grow long hair or certain facial hair, for example. And MLB teams won’t let players go skiing or sky diving, as former MLB players have also confirmed to me. Jim Lonborg, who won the American League Cy Young Award in 1967 for the Red Sox, got hurt in a skiing accident and was never the same pitcher afterward.
The same principles apply across professional sports leagues. Why should teams pay guys millions of dollars for them to take unnecessary risks that jeopardize their playing careers? If vaccinating players gives the team, a private company, a competitive advantage, then a team is crazy not to mandate it.
And no, this is not the same thing as President Joe Biden telling OSHA to mandate coronavirus vaccines at businesses with 100 or more employees. That’s the federal government enforcing a regulation on private companies, which will result in them losing workers in what’s already considered a labor shortage and working people losing their livelihoods.
The harm from that mandate would most likely affect low-wage earners who work for big companies such as Walmart and McDonald’s. Meanwhile, any collateral damage from an NHL team, a private organization, mandating this vaccine would affect mostly ultra-wealthy athletes. That’s not to say that Biden is right or wrong, but rather that the circumstances aren’t the same.
Hopefully, the NHL has a smooth season and doesn’t need to postpone or cancel any games due to coronavirus. What the Islanders are doing here helps that cause.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
