There may be a loophole to allow the players get vaccinated. I understand that B.C. government has been looking at vaccine priority based on a couple of criteria:
-if there is a bad breakout increase in certain region or settings
- if the workers (whether in mass production, farm, warehouse setting) where social distancing is impossible and the facility ventilation is poor to not able to allow good air circulation required to lower chance of infection.
By these two criteria you could argue that when the players play or practice, they cannot wear mask nor social distance due to the nature of the games and there is some mentions that ice arena does not have the best air ventilation especially closer to ice level and the freezing temperature is exactly what Virus thrives on.
If the Canucks players cannot opt out and must play to complete the season, I think they can be included in the group that needs to be vaccinated due to their working condition, once recovered fully , not because hockey is important but more because of that NHL did not exactly help the players to make a safe choice or provide the means to do so (as evident by so many games cancelled so far). Other teams should proactively get the vaccination too. The only thing I can think is that if was not for money the NHL should probably waited for the Covid herd community to work before kicking off their season, even it means delaying hockey for a year. Anyway there is no going back now, so they should work with the Canadian government to get the vaccination done for the players, refs, coaches, and trainers.
For goodwill, NHL if allowed to jump the vaccination queue, should find creative ways to pay back by either helping out with the local vaccine roll out effort, donate large amount to local hospitals, small businesses heavily impacted by the pandemic, or young families heavily impacted by lost lives due to the pandemic.