Rogers Place is one of two arenas the NHL is using as a hub to restart its season this summer

A Canadian arena where a large number of NHL games are set to be played when the season resumes, was damaged by a “significant storm” on Thursday that resulted in flooding damage, according to multiple reports.

Video shared on social media Thursday showed a large amount of water flowing through an entrance foyer at Rogers Place in Edmonton, which is one of two arenas the NHL is using as a hub to restart its season this summer.

“A significant storm came through Edmonton earlier this evening,”

the venue said on Twitter Thursday evening.

“As a result, Rogers Place has suffered some water damage to the terminus of Ford Hall, along with some smaller leaks in other parts of the building”.

Rogers place was set to host Western Conference games as well as the Stanley Cup finals, starting in a few weeks.

Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid (97) takes part in NHL hockey training camp in Edmonton, Alta., on Tuesday July 14, 2020. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

The NHL had listed 10 potential hub cities but ended up selecting two in Canada because the coronavirus was deemed to be under better control in those areas, ESPN reported. Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena — home of the Maple Leafs — is the other hub for the tournament.

NHL, PLAYERS APPROVE PLAN TO RESUME SEASON, EXTEND CBA

The city of Edmonton currently has 184 active coronavirus cases, according to health officials.

Rogers Place has served as the home arena for the Edmonton Oilers since opening its doors roughly four years ago. The venue’s first scheduled event is an exhibition game between the Calgary Flames and Oilers on July 28. Meaningful games start in just two weeks on August

Source Fox News

For some athletes, today was the last chance to take part in the Tokyo Olympics.

They are too old, too exhausted or too financially stretched to wait for another year, after the pandemic forced its postponement.

One of them is 35-year-old Tetsuya Sotomura. When I met him on a sweltering afternoon earlier this week he was still hard at it in a converted factory building in a north Tokyo suburb, flying high into the air, spinning and tumbling on a massive trampoline.

Back in 2008 Tetsuya placed 4th at the Beijing Olympics, just missing a bronze medal. Since then he’s fought injury that put him out of London in 2012 and Rio in 2016. Tokyo was to be his last hurrah, a hometown Olympics to end his trampolining career on a high. But another year is just too much.

“Back in 2008, if the Beijing Games had been postponed by a year I would have thought ok, it’s another year to train, another year to grow,” he tells me. “But now I am 35. A year feels like a very long time. So, I have decided retirement is the only option.”

Tetsuya Sotomura believes retirement is now his only option
But there is another reason Tetsuya is getting off the trampoline. He thinks Tokyo 2021 may never happen.

“It’s so uncertain. No-one knows the probability. If what awaits us next year is cancellation, I would have lost another year for nothing. So that is another reason to go now.”

Enthusiasm for the Games has plummeted in Japan since Covid-19 arrived here in January. The Japanese government has closed Japan’s borders to most foreigners to protect the country from imported cases, and many Japanese people are in no hurry to see them re-open for athletes or spectators.

After retirement, Tetsuya is helping and coaching at his old trampoline gym in the north of Tokyo
TV reporters have been visiting the towns due to host various foreign teams and asking locals how they feel. The residents of a town north of Tokyo due to host the Brazilian team were clearly struggling to maintain any semblance of enthusiasm. An opinion poll by the Kyodo news agency found just 23% of people in Japan now support holding the games if Covid-19 infections are still widespread next year.

The latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) do not make for happy viewing. More than 15 million infections worldwide, and that number is growing by about a million every four to five days.

Source BBC