{"id":25829,"date":"2021-01-27T15:29:21","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T20:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=25829"},"modified":"2021-01-27T15:29:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T20:29:30","slug":"boston-university-pauses-athletics-due-to-spring-semester-covid-19-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2021\/01\/27\/boston-university-pauses-athletics-due-to-spring-semester-covid-19-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston University pauses athletics due to spring semester COVID-19 cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ethan Fuller<\/em><\/p>\n

Boston University announced Wednesday in a statement<\/a> that all athletic program activities will be paused for the remainder of January. The school cited the reasoning as, “due to a rise in positive COVID-19 tests as the Boston University campus repopulates for the spring semester.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The pause means that the four basketball and hockey programs will not play this week. Boston University men’s and women’s basketball was scheduled to play a home-and-home series with Holy Cross on Saturday and Sunday. The men’s and women’s hockey teams would have played Boston College in a rivalry series.<\/p>\n

According to the release, BU athletic teams will not practice again until February 1. The athletic department specified that the pause includes “all team and individual training session.”<\/p>\n

“By and large, our student-athletes and staff have done a remarkable job in helping to stop the spread of this virus within their teams and our department,” said director of athletics Drew Marrochello in the release.<\/span>\u00a0“However, at this time, we feel that pausing all activities is a prudent decision that will better our chances of safely returning all of our teams to practice and competition in the coming weeks.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The department also left a cliffhanger note at the end of the statement, saying: “Later this week a determination will be made on how this pause will impact events scheduled beyond this weekend.” From this quote, BU has not ruled out an extended delay to returning.<\/span><\/p>\n

The men’s basketball team is 3-5 at the exact midway point of its season, while the women’s basketball team sits at 5-1 (missing last week due to COVID-19 concerns at Lafayette College).<\/p>\n

The women’s ice hockey team is 2-3-0 this season after already experiencing a pause of over one month between winter break and a positive COVID-19 test within the program before splitting a series with Maine last weekend. The men’s program, ranked fifteenth in the nation, did not begin its season until Jan. 8, and is 5-1-0 through six games, riding a five-game win streak.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: The men’s hockey team gathers around freshman goaltender Drew Commesso before a game against Maine at Walter Brown Arena on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2021. Photo by Patrick Donnelly<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ethan Fuller Boston University announced Wednesday in a statement that all athletic program activities will be paused for the remainder of January. The school cited the reasoning as, “due to a rise in positive COVID-19 tests as the Boston University campus repopulates for the spring semester.” The pause means that the four basketball and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17205,"featured_media":25835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1049,1026,1027,1028,1029,1030,1031,1052,19,1039,1040,1041,1042,1043,1044],"tags":[1128,1753,1754],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25829"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17205"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25829"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25837,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25829\/revisions\/25837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}