from Cathal Kelly of the Globe and Mail,

“We have concerns,” commissioner Gary Bettman said on Friday. “We’ve expressed those to the Players’ Association. We see that a number of players are now also expressing concerns, and we’ll have to see how this all plays out.”

Bold leadership.

According to reports, the coming iteration of the Olympic handbook lays out how long visitors to China could be looking at. If you catch the bug, there is the possibility you could be quarantined for as long as five weeks. Again, this shouldn’t be startling news to a multibillion-dollar organization sending a couple of hundred people to Beijing. It’s already standard operating procedure under Chinese law.

The Olympics begin on Feb. 4 and end on Feb. 20. What if you test positive on the 19th? Do your own math here.

For now, the players’ concerns aren’t that they’ll get thrown in a jazzed-up detention camp and cut off from the outside world (those are very much my concerns). They are more concerned they won’t be paid while they’re doing their bid.

Another concern, as voiced by PA boss Donald Fehr, is whether the players will have to do this theoretical quarantine in China. Fehr is seeking “certainty” on the matter.

Sorry? How did you imagine this going?

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