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ports
Fishermen cast for chum salmon Friday where Johns Creek meets Oakland Bay
at the Bayshore Preserve near of Shelton. Journal photo Gordon Weeks
FAB POST
Savoring the distraction that sport brings
’11 admit it.
Back in in 'the early
days of the summer,
when college and profes-
sional sports were shut
It was confirmation bias
of just what I expected to
happen. "
The thing is, though, that
‘ was about the end of it.
down due to the pandemic, The rest of that tour-
I wasn’tvery enthusiastic nament came off without
about their return. any further confirmed CO-
What’s that blasphemy VID—19 cases.
you write? A sports writer By JUSTIN The WNBA and NBA
who didn’t want to see JOHNSON returned to action shortly
sports? thereafter, with the former
It’s true- Playing a complete 22-game
With the novel coronavirus slowly
spreading across the country, it just
didn’t feel like the time or place to be
worried about playing games. ‘
When Major League Soccer be-
came the first professional sport to
return to action in its MLS is Back
tournament playing in a controlled
bubble in Florida, two teams were
knocked out within days due to out-
breaks of the virus.
regular season and playoffs with next
to no virus—related problems, except
for the league champion Seattle
Storm’s opening playoff game being
pushed back by three days by what
proved to be a false positive test.
The NBA completed its season,
which had paused with just weeks
remaining, and culminated with the
Los Angeles Lakers winning their
17th NBA title.
Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020 Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A-37 -
Major League Baseball played a
60-game season at home stadiums
and, aside from a few rocky weeks at
the start, also has successfully pulled
off a year, with the World Series be-
tween the Los Angeles Dodgers and
Tampa Bay Rays underway now.
Even the National Football .
League, which, truth be told I didn’t
expect to see start until at least early
is underway and managing
to keep its teams on the field. The
league has seen a handful of out-
breaks that have postponed games
and canceled practices, but it’s been
reasonably handled through the first
third of the season.
The start of the college football
season has been a little rockier, with
a number of games postponed or can-
celed. .
While I wasn’t initially enthusi-
astic about the return of sports, I’ve
thawed out a bit. I haven’t watched
as many games as I normally would,
but I find myself drawn back to the
welcome‘distraction that the world of
sports provide.
As the pandemic has worn on,
those distractions are proving valu-
able to my mental health. It allows
me to disengage from everything else
going and just watch — although
with the way some of the games have
gone, I’m not sure if they’ve been to-
tally stress-free.
I’m sure fans of the Seattle
Seahawks can understand that given
the finishes of the past few weeks.
It’s nice to have a distraction
again.
I Justin Johnson is the Editor of the
Shelton—Mason County Journal. He
was named Sports Writer of the
Year by the Washington Newspaper
Publishers Association. He can be
reached at justin@masoncounty.com.
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