It’s the time of the season when young hockey players are supposed to be battling each other to see who will get playing time in the upcoming QMJHL season, but the Halifax Mooseheads have been battling a mysterious illness that’s caused the team to cancel two pre-season games.

The players have seen doctors, and their physical therapist has been monitoring them closely, but GM Cam Russell tells News 95.7 the team has no idea what’s making close to a dozen of the young men sick.

“We’ve got an infectious disease expert looking into it today (Monday),” say Russell.

At this point he doesn’t know how serious it is, and says they just want to cover all their bases.

“We just want to rule out everything,” he explains. “Everyone can always say when someone is sick or not feeling well it’s just the flu.”

The team’s physically therapist tells Russell this situation is worse than a case of H1N1 she saw when she was with Shawinigan that put half the team out of commission a couple years ago.