The Drummondville Voltigeurs hockey team remains locked down following positive COVID-19 tests by seven team members (players and staff), but those results don’t include Newfoundlanders Riley Mercer and Conor Shortall.
The two are rookies on the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League team — Mercer a 16-year-old goalie, and Shortall a 17-year-old defenceman.
The Voltigeurs announced last week a first positive COVID-19 test amongst the players, and the team was shut down.
Last weekend, the team said seven members tested positive and both players and staff were placed in administrative quarantine and underwent screening for COVID-19.
According to the league, the mandatory isolation period for players and hockey staff is a minimum of 14 days.
The Voltigeurs’ activities remain suspended until further notice, which include a pair of back-to-back, home-and-home games against the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada scheduled Friday and Saturday nights.
The QMJHL opened its season Oct. 2, but had outbreaks on the Armada and Sherbrooke Phoenix in its opening week. Blainville-Boisbriand announced it had 18 positive tests, while Sherbrooke said it had eight after the two teams played each other twice on the first weekend of the season.
“We never know from day to day what the situation is going to be,” QMJHL commissioner Gilles Courteau told the CBC. “Every day there’s something new.”
Courteau said the league’s 12 Quebec-based teams will receive $1 million each in provincial support.
Shortall has a goal and an assist in four games for Drummondville so far this season. Mercer was the Volts’ second-round pick, 31st overall, in the 2020 QMJHL midget draft. He has yet to appear in a game for Drummondville this year.
