Sask minor hockey boldly inches toward new world

Saskatoon minor hockey is proceeding with its upcoming tryouts in the coming weeks, on schedule with past years.

Any sort of league schedule and organized games will remain on hold until further notice, however.

“Our tryouts are going to go as per traditional schedule, as we scheduled back in the spring,” said Saskatoon Minor Hockey Association executive director Kelly Boes, adding that tryouts for the Saskatoon AA Hockey League will begin with the under-15 group after the Labour Day weekend, followed by under-13 and then zone tryouts as they “try and get teams and leagues formed in somewhat normal timeframe.”

League games would not start until November, at the earliest, or possibly later. “If we get going (with games) anywhere between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1, I think we’ll be in a pretty good spot," said Boes.

Exactly when leagues games would begin is “the million-dollar question” — the Saskatchewan Hockey Association has already given minor hockey associations direction to proceed with tryouts and form teams, but not play games.

“I know they have a proposal with the government to start league play on Nov. 1, so hopefully it happens sometime between Nov. 1 and Dec. 1,” said Boes. “I think we’ll be able to have a somewhat normal season if that happens. Time will tell, I guess. We don’t know when the government is going to sign off on a date for the SHA (Saskatchewan Health Authority).”

The upcoming tryouts will look a little different, in any case.

Instead of five-on-five, it will be a four-on-four format with smaller rosters of nine skaters and one or two goalies. Players, other than goalies, won’t use the dressing rooms. Sessions will be shorter.

Players will do their skill sessions and tryout games together as a cohort group.

“We’ll meet the guidelines that are in place at this point of time in terms of bodies on the benches,” noted Boes.

“We should not have any bench issues or dressing room issues (for physical distancing), at least at tryouts. Then when league play starts, if the (Health Authority) wants to maintain a maximum of 30 participants (for an indoor sports activity), then any kind of regular hockey goes out the window. At that point, we’d probably have to regroup.”

Boes said Saskatchewan Hockey is going on the assumption that, if the government and health authority approve league play, “they’re going to approve more numbers on the playing surface because that approval for hockey includes everything from initiation under-7 to junior.”

“Right now, you’re looking at the maximum you could have on any given team, for any kind of league play, would be 11 or 12 because you still have to account for coaches and refs (not to mention timekeeper box and penalty box attendants)," Boes said.

There won’t be any tournament play until at least January, if at all.

“We’re going to proceed with our regular planned programming and we’ll be a little bit more (front-end loaded) with practices,” said Boes.

“If something goes sideways (in terms of COVID-19 outbreaks) later in the fall, or early winter, I guess we’ll roll with it at that point.”

In the meantime, online registration for Saskatoon minor hockey has been extended two weeks until the end of August.

Boes said numbers are “pretty good right now” considering it’s still August.

"But we’re at about 3,500, and last year we were around 3,700, so we’re in a pretty decent spot because we know we have families who haven’t registered yet because they didn’t know what, really, they are getting and how much it’s going to cost and things like that.”