Stanley Cup vs. Flu Pandemic

For all you hockey fans out there, this was posted in our intranet daily news this morning.


History lesson: Flu pandemic claimed even the Stanley Cup in 1919

6 June, 2006

by Ken Stroebel
With the NHL Stanley Cup finals underway in Carolina this week, and the threat of a worldwide avian flu outbreak still very real, it seems an ideal time to reflect upon another occasion when those two events intersected – tragically. The Stanley Cup has gone unclaimed only twice in its 112-year history. The second time was last year due to the player lockout. The first was 1919, when the series' final two games and several players fell victim to the most devastating flu pandemic in modern history.
The hockey season of 1918 was bittersweet in many respects. Shortly after it began the Armistice was signed that ended World War I, much to the relief and joy of players and fans. But celebrations were short lived, as apprehension grew over the deadly flu bug that was already ravaging Europe and quickly making its way to the U.S. and Canada.
By the time the Stanley Cup playoffs rolled around in late March of 1919, the Spanish Flu, as it was known, was well established stateside and warnings were being issued in America about the potential dangers of large public gatherings. Still, fans were eager to see the final showdown between the Montreal Canadians and Seattle Metropolitans, and ignored the warnings as the contest got underway in Seattle.
The teams swapped victories for three games, Seattle crushing the Canadians the first game 7-0, losing the next one 4-2 and rebounding in game three, 7-2. Game four ended in a 0-0 tie and was distinguished by the remarkable play of Canadians' star Joe Hall.
It was an ominous sign, then, for fans to see Hall, along with other players, looking uncharacteristically listless and tired as Game 5 progressed into overtime. Even before the game ended with a Montreal victory, Hall was rushed to a Seattle hospital and diagnosed with the dreaded flu virus. Four other players and a Montreal coach also ended up bedridden with flu after Game 5 – to say nothing of how many fans contracted the disease during the series.
On April 5, 1919, barely a week after his stellar performance in Game 4, Joe Hall died in his hospital bed – one of an estimated 50 to 100 million victims of the flu pandemic of 1918. The final two games of the series were canceled.
Flu threat today
While it's hard to imagine a similar scenario playing out today and the sports world losing a Mark Recchi or Rod Brind'Amour to a flu bug, the threat of another flu pandemic remains very real according to the World Health Organization. The H5N1 strain of avian flu causing concern today is genetically similar to the H1N1 strain that wrought such devastation in 1918.
Since 2003, 224 people are known to have contracted the virus, all in Asia, and 127 of them have died from it. Recent reports that cases were decreasing in most countries were quickly followed by the disturbing finding of a family cluster in Indonesia in which the virus had apparently spread from human to human. The establishment of efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission would almost certainly lead to a pandemic, and the risk that the H5N1 virus will acquire that ability persists as long as humans are exposed to it through birds.
Although pharmaceutical companies are no longer actively involved in producing flu vaccines, Pfizer and the industry as a whole are on standby to offer assistance in the event of a mass outbreak. Drug companies could play an important role in the government's preparation and response plan, which calls for stockpiling antiviral drugs to treat secondary infections that often accompany severe flu, and rapidly producing mass quantities of new vaccines.
According to Infectious Diseases TA Development Head Mike Dunne, Pfizer has offered, among other things, to provide manufacturing capabilities from the animal vaccine side of the business – an effort that would require a rework of cell culture based processes that are not currently in place.
Although the WHO Collaborating Centres and Reference Laboratories have been working on developing several new recombinant H5N1 prototype vaccine strains since 2004, no vaccine is ready now for commercial production. And because any effective vaccine would need to closely match the pandemic virus, large-scale production could not conceivably begin before that strain emerges and a pandemic has been declared.
Sad legacy
Opinions vary as to whether any modern flu pandemic could possibly be as deadly as the outbreak of 1918. Pandemics in 1957-58 and 1968-69 were far less severe, and the recent ABC TV movie "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America," with its depiction of panic and widespread quarantines, no doubt presented a worst case scenario meant to drum up ratings.
Whatever the severity, its certainly likely that part of any response plan would emphasize preventive measures against contracting the virus, and that those would include advisories against attending large public gatherings – even NHL hockey games.
As for Joe Hall, though he never did get his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup, he was ultimately inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1961. Today his sad story stands as a stark reminder that when it comes to disease, even the healthiest among us are vulnerable.