Dr. Sarah Hall is an anesthesiologist on Vancouver Island who is bracing for what is to come. She will be among the front-line medical professionals putting breathing tubes into patients suffering the worst effects of COVID-19, a pandemic that presents the doctor with an unusual personal symmetry.



Her family name has been entwined with the term pandemic for 101 years, ever since the Spanish Flu tore across the world and into Stanley Cup history. She is the great-granddaughter of Joe Hall, a rough and rugged defenceman with the Montreal Canadiens who died from complications of the flu in 1919.



“I have to say, I did think about it,” said Dr. Hall, “because of the way he died.”



Joe Hall was a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday when he collapsed during a game in Seattle, leading officials to cancel the final game in the championship series. He was eventually moved from his hotel room into a local hospital bed, where he died of...