Christmas turned out to be just another day for University of Hawaii sports fans. Another day, and another cancellation with little notice.

The extreme has become the routine.

It’s debatable if the football team belonged in the EasyPost Hawaii Bowl or not. And the men’s basketball team was winless in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic headed into the tourney’s final day. Regardless, these are signature events for UH and are usually beneficial to the state’s coffers.

Back when the word “exposure” generally meant good things for sports teams and tourism destinations, hosting and playing in these nationally televised events when most people are on break from work or school was great for UH. And the reminders to the rest of the country that it’s warm and sunny in Hawaii in December were good for the visitor industry and hence, our economy.

But how can any of that be evaluated, and does any of it really matter right now?

The word for today — actually, until further notice — is “tentative.” Just consider any game on any sports team’s schedule (or any public event, for that matter) as having an asterisk next to it, with this at the bottom of the page:

*Subject to postponement or cancellation dependent on the whims of COVID-19.

At the time of this writing on Christmas afternoon — right around when Stanford and Vanderbilt would have been finishing up in the DHC championship game, which was also canceled — there was no word on the status of the UH basketball team’s next game.

That would be Thursday’s Big West Conference season-opener, a home game against UC Davis at SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center — the same place where just two of the DHC’s four final-day games were played.

Vanderbilt won the championship by default because Stanford declined to play, citing coronavirus issues.

Hawaii’s seventh-place game against South Florida had already been canceled because UH opted out with a lack of available players because of injury and pandemic protocols.

The immediate consequences for the Rainbows were that they went winless for the first time in the history of the DHC and guard Noel Coleman lost his chance to make the all-tournament team (which I think he deserved anyway, after superb performances in the two games he got to play).

In the long term — as it is for the football team — there is of course concern for the health of players and staff who have contracted the virus, and been in contact with those who have.

The football team’s tumultuous season is finally over — going from not in a bowl at 6-7 to squeaking its way in and then unable to play in it because so many players had tested positive for the virus.

For basketball, UH might have yet another long layoff between games, and yet another disruption in the team’s playing rotation depending on the illnesses and injuries.

The Rainbows’ second Big West basketball game, also at home and scheduled for Saturday, was already canceled because UC Riverside has pandemic issues of its own.

If I’m the UC Davis athletic director, Rocko DeLuca, I want a lot of assurances before putting the Aggies on a plane to an island where a bowl game and a basketball tournament championship game were canceled with very little notice.

The problem is no one can guarantee who will or won’t have the virus a week from now, no matter what their vaccination status is. Quarantine works, but if a bunch of guys are going to play in a competitive basketball game, they’re eventually going to have to practice together.

I really hope this isn’t the case, but it seems all of us could be headed back to where we were in 2020, when all of UH’s sports were shut down around the time of spring break. Hopefully, with what has been learned since then we can get closer to whatever that elusive new normal is, without jeopardizing anyone’s health.

None of these cancellations are surprises anymore. But they are extremely frustrating, and disappointments for so many.

Whether it’s in sports or other parts of life, we’ll all be glad if we can live without those asterisks in 2022.

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Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com.