Armour: NHL players feel young again with fear of mumps
CHICAGO – With a 3-year-old daughter and another who just celebrated her first birthday, Patrick Sharp knows all about taking precautions against the mumps.
He just never expected he'd need to worry about himself.
"It's a little weird," Sharp acknowledged. "It's kind of scary. You see different teams, guys going down with it."
Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Olli Maatta on Friday became the 16th player to test positive for the mumps. Though only five of the 30 NHL teams have been affected during the month-long outbreak, no one is taking chances with a virus that, much like the flu, can spread easily in close quarters.
The mumps spreads through saliva and "respiratory droplets" – i.e., coughing and sneezing.
"We're always washing our hands," Blackhawks center Andrew Shaw said after practice Friday.
The mumps is supposed to be one of those things that belonged to our grandparents' generation. Like walking two miles to school, uphill both ways, in a driving snowstorm. Though the virus once sickened 186,000 Americans each year, a vaccine introduced in 1967 has reduced those cases by 99 percent.
But the MMR vaccine is only 88 percent effective, meaning there will always be a few people who are not immune. Its effectiveness can decrease over time, too, especially for those who don't get a second shot.
Then there are those folks who refuse immunizations because they believe – wrongly – that vaccines are not safe.
Put all that together, and the occasional outbreak is as inevitable as it is rare.
"It's different, that's for sure," Shaw said.
Though the mumps aren't usually serious – fever, headache, fatigue, muscle ache, loss of appetite and swelling of the cheeks and throat are the most common symptoms – there's no treatment for it. You can't load up on antibiotics, and no over-the-counter drugs will make it go away faster.
About all you can do is make sure you don't get it in the first place.
Beginning Nov. 14, NHL teams offered their players booster shots – or the initial vaccine for those who'd never had it. (No word on if they got Snoopy Band-Aids afterward.) Locker rooms have been scrubbed down, used water bottles are being tossed and players hear more reminders to wash their hands than 4-year-olds at an arcade birthday party.
And if there's even the slightest chance of a player having the mumps, he's pulled off the ice – and away from his teammates.
"There was just so much talk about (the mumps) that they wanted to be careful," said Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith, who missed Tuesday night's game against the Minnesota Wild after feeling ill. "I probably could have played, but with all this talk, better to be sure that it's not. It's not. It wasn't."
The average incubation period for the mumps is 16 to 18 days, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Since most teams had immunized their players by the end of the first week of December, the NHL could be nearing the end of its outbreak.
That's good news, because flu season has already started.
PHOTOS: NHL mumps outbreak
