MLSE offers to cover COVID-19 testing if Toronto is hub NHL city

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Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment is offering to pay for all COVID-19 testing for players and the community if Toronto is chosen as a hub city for the NHL's potential return, Ontario premier Doug Ford said Friday.

"What I understand, all tests will be supplied by MLSE," Ford told reporters Friday, according to the Toronto Star's Kevin McGran. "The cost will be absorbed by MLSE or the NHL, whoever it might be. And I guess through that, when they set it up, then they'll actually donate some of the time of the testing area to the public, as well.

"So they're giving back to the public on top of testing their own players, which I thought was very thoughtful of them for doing that."

The NHL has proposed placing four groups of teams in four different cities as a contingency plan to save the 2019-20 campaign. Toronto, along with several other NHL sites - including Edmonton and Vancouver - has expressed interest in hosting.

"We have had conversations with (MLSE) and it's all based conditionally on following the chief medical officer's protocol," Ford said. "People that aren't in the country right now, if they do come back, they're going to have to be quarantined like everyone else for two weeks. I understand with the Raptors, the NBA and the NHL, (they) have super stringent restrictions and protocols in place."

Ontario cabinet minister Lisa MacLeod announced Friday that facilities connected to the province's sports teams are allowed to reopen under certain provisions. The Raptors, a club MLSE also owns, will allow one player and one coach at a time on the court. However, the NHL reportedly said it won't permit players to return to practice rinks until all teams have been given the same opportunity.

The NHL went on pause March 12. Players and staff remain in self-isolation, and the league hopes to begin the second phase of its return plan in late May.

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