Flyers’ first game with fans was eerie; I locked down a year ago today, just before the sports world stopped | Marcus Hayes

Today is my personal corona-versary. It’s the day I locked down to avoid COVID-19. It is not a happy corona-versary.

Because, as fate would have it, I was assigned to spend this past Sunday at the place I made the decision. It was … unsettling. I worked for 5 hours in a nearly empty hockey arena, limited to 15 percent capacity — 3,023 masked and sanitized fans, the first allowed in the Wells Fargo Center in 362 days, were thrilled to be in the building. I was not.

Most of the sporting world shuttered on March 13. Not I. One year ago today, on the evening of March 9, 2020, I told my boss and my wife I would not be attending any more sporting events in person because I feared contracting the coronavirus. I didn’t want to get sick, or infect my elderly mother staying with us, or my wife, a medical professional. Both responded like I was tinfoil hat crazy.

I’d attended a Flyers practice and had written a column that day, a Monday. I begged Flyers and Sixers fans to stay home from games that Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. I suggested that the teams should offer refunds for any fan who opted out — but, of course, “opted out” wasn’t in the vernacular back then, either. Both teams sold all of their tickets, but sources at the time indicated that around 3,000 Flyers and Sixers fans stayed home from each game. Neither team has precise numbers on how many refunds were requested or issued, but both teams said a few fans got their money back.

Two of my supervisors ignored my pleas and attended the hockey game together. One had to leave in the middle of the game. We had a coronavirus emergency in the newsroom.

And here I was, assigned to cover the return of the fans. Here, where, almost a year ago, three Flyers expressed their skepticism to me over the coronavirus — a disease that had already shut down hockey in Switzerland and had led NHL to impose a travel ban. One of the Flyers was former defenseman Matt Niskanen, whose hand I shook after our conversation.

I immediately washed that hand.

Before Sunday, I hadn’t been to an indoor sporting event since that practice. I actually got chills walking through security, riding the elevator to the press box, setting up my computer, saying hello to reporters and elevator operators and Miss Georgia Ann, a security guard I’ve known for 25 years. She hugged me. Oops. We got carried away.

Other feelings surfaced as the game progressed. Sadness. Maybe a little guilt; maybe my admonishments should have been stronger. Anger, for sure; why did so few listen for so long?

Resentment, too. I received at least one death threat, and dozens of death wishes. The response to the column was so hate filled, vulgar, and disgusting, that we had to immediately deactivate the comments section.

But, mostly, it was profound, overwhelming sadness. We all try not to think about it. The dying. The lying. The selfishness. It was impossible for me to ignore, sitting in that nearly empty barn. Lately we’ve developed three vaccines being administered to more than 2.5 million people in the United States daily; cases have plateaued; and hospitalizations have plummeted. Still, we have lost more than 525,000 Americans, 25 percent of the global total. We lost almost 1,300 on Sunday.

We had lost 22, total, on March 9, 2020.

Sad.

I was the exception last winter. I understand that.

“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I think it’s being pushed by the media,” Raffl said.

“I think I have more chance of catching the flu,” Sean Couturier told me. “We’re going to stop living now? I’m not a doctor or a scientist, and I guess it’s more dangerous than the flu, but I’m not going to stop living.”

I can’t really blame them. Not everyone was obsessed like I’d been, for weeks. I was anxiously sitting on a 5:55 p.m. flight Jan. 27, the day after Kobe Bryant died, and when the Clippers-Lakers game was postponed at 5:30, I virtually ran off the plane. The paper sent me to Milwaukee for a Feb. 22 Sixers game. I essentially spent both days locked down in my hotel. This was nine months before the Cambridge Dictionary chose “quarantine” as its word of the year 2020.

Nevertheless, I got really sick when I got home.

I’m waiting for my vaccine. Hopefully, you’ve had yours. Moreover, hopefully, you’re willing to get yours. It’s incredible that that last sentence needs to be written.

This column isn’t meant to prove my prescience. It is meant to remind us again, a year later, that we are a global community that shares common vulnerabilities, which require sacrifice for the common good.

When you reflect all that has happened in the 12 months since — pandemic, lockdown, isolation, scandal, social upheaval, and a divisive election cycle — it’s a miracle that only half a million have died.

It’s a tragedy even half that many did.