Sports returned in 2021, but not the way we remembered them

By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer

Though the sports we watch brought with them a façade of “back to normal” as the pandemic-altered 2021 came to a close, a new reality took root this year. Every game, every practice, every season is a positive test or outbreak away from being postponed or compromised or canceled. Nobody can take any of this for granted anymore. That’s one of the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic carved away at the “old normal” in 2021, a year in which sports came back from the total shutdown the coronavirus triggered in 2020 — but not quite in the way we remembered.