Organizers of the World Junior Hockey Championship in Edmonton are moving ahead on the assumption the tournament will proceed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s good news for this province, which has two players at the Team Canada selection camp in Red Deer—Alex Newhook of St. John’s and Dawson Mercer of Bay Roberts.

Two other players recently tested positive for COVID, sending everyone into quarantine until at least December 6. Until then, all Team Canada hopefuls have been pretty much confined to their hotel rooms.

Newhook says working out in isolation has been unusual, to say the least. He credits the team’s strength and conditioning coach for coming up with creative ways to work out over Zoom calls after bikes were delivered to players’ hotel rooms, adding they’re doing the best with what they’ve got under the circumstances.

Newhook says he hopes the tournament goes ahead and that he makes the team after being cut last year.