It's always hard to gauge where the fine lines are between media attention, public interest and medical knowledge -- and when they diverge into media hype, public paranoia and a genuine medical situation.
Hockey teams usually deal with a flu virus once or more during a season.
This year, the seriousness of the situation has been escalated by appearances of the potentially fatal H1N1 virus.
"Everybody's concerned about it and we're no different," said Oil Kings general manager Bob Green yesterday. "We've got 24 guys here that are together all the time. We've got a couple of kids (with seasonal flu) right now and they are recuperating.
"When you've got any kind of bug in this kind of environment it can go through a lot of the team,"
Three NHL players have been diagnosed, including the Oilers' Ladislav Smid, who played in this building last night. NHL teams -- like the Detroit Red Wings, who arrived in Edmonton yesterday ahead of their game against the Oilers tonight -- are sending their training staffs in ahead to disinfect locker-rooms before their players go in.
"Our training staff does a great job, where everybody gets their own water bottle, everybody gets their own towel," said Green. "We try and be as diligent in all those areas as possible. We've got hand cleaners all over the dressing room and everywhere else.
"We just have to take care of the things we can take care of.
"I'm not a doctor, so I don't know. If somebody's sick they go see a doctor and get taken care of. I think that's all we can do -- take every precaution.
"You think of everything you can that you can do to help the situation."
