Justin Trudeau officially drops border requirements for NHL players

In case you missed the news earlier today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially confirmed that the Canadian government will be dropping its cross-border COVID-19 vaccine mandates on October 1st.

Removal of the mandate means that unvaccinated NHLers will be allowed entry into Canada.

"The removal of border measures has been facilitated by a number of factors, including modelling that indicates that Canada has largely passed the peak of the Omicron BA.4- and BA.5-fuelled wave, Canada's high vaccination rates, lower hospitalization and death rates, as well as the availability and use of vaccine boosters (including new bivalent formulation), rapid tests, and treatments for COVID-19," the government said in a release.

Interestingly enough though, the United States still has its own border vaccine mandate. Currently unvaccinated non-Americans cannot cross the border into Canada. So this means that a player like Detroit Red Wings forward Tyler Bertuzzi, who has chosen not to receive the vaccine, can enter Canada without restriction but presumably will be denied entry into the United States. Bertuzzi is a Canadian citizen. Unvaccinated American players, however, will be all allowed re-entry into their home country after traveling to Canada. However, it's expected that the United States will drop its mandate in coordination with Canada. Still... no word on that just yet.

It's also worth noting that mask mandates have been removed from land and air travel between Canada and the United States, as well.

In any case, this announcement from the Canadian government should come as welcome news to the NHL and its players. For the first time in two years the league has been hoping to run a "normal" campaign and this news will certainly help in that respect. Once the United States drops their mandate it should be "game on" once again. 

Frankly, vaccine mandates don't seem to have affected the NHL as much as they have other leagues like the MLB and NBA, but this change will at least level the playing field for all competitors and essentially put an end to any and all COVID-19 restrictions with the league. It may feel like a long time coming, but it looks like we may finally get some normalcy back in the hockey world.