Canada drops vaccine mandate for visiting professional athletes

While these changes of course impact the entire country, sports fans can't help but notice how this will return their favorite sports to a pre-pandemic way of functioning. This means that unvaccinated baseball players will be able to play in Toronto if the Blue Jays punch their ticket into the postseason, ending what has been a two-year headache involving unvaccinated players not being able to play over the border.

The changes will immediately impact the NBA and NHL, which start their 2022-23 seasons in October. The NHL's high vaccination rate has kept drama to a minimum — outside of Evander Kane getting in trouble for using a fake vaccine card. The NBA has had its own soap opera with players not being able to travel to Toronto because they are unvaccinated, most notably Nets point guard Kyrie Irving, who recently admitted to not getting a contract extension in favor of staying unvaccinated. 

It should be remembered that the major sports leagues still require COVID testing on some level and that a surge in cases across the U.S. and Canada could make these rules beef up yet again as they did last December when the Omicron strain spread like wildfire. For the meantime, however, it looks like Canada is taking a more relaxed approach to letting visiting athletes across its borders.