It’s going to be a different game
Everything about the return of grassroots minor hockey is up in the air
OTTAWA — For the fiveyear-old boy a few doors down the street, the passion for hockey hit hard when he made his first strides in an organized setting last winter.
The love of the game hasn’t disappeared. There he is on the road, almost every day for hours during self-isolation, chasing and then slapping a tennis ball into the net at the end of his driveway.
Some days, he’s in full equipment, minus the skates, an Ottawa Senators sweater draped over the gear. The primary opposition is his three-year-old sister, only steps behind with a cut-off stick and an intense competitive spirit of her own.
It takes a mother-father tag team approach to keep up with all the energy and to limit the slashing.
Clearly, the next on-ice season can’t come soon enough.
Exactly when that happens and what the return to minor hockey is going to look like, however, is anybody’s guess.
Without a novel coronavirus vaccine, everything and anything about the return, involving the 630,000 players who were registered under the Hockey Canada banner last season, is up in the air.
While the National Hockey League is finalizing details for a made-for-TV 24-team summer playoff in yet to be announced locations without spectators, kick-starting hockey at the grassroots level is still a long way off.
There is no set time frame for girls and boys to step back on the ice in any kind of organized structure. When it does happen, the first strides might be all about working out individually or in small groups, in keeping with social distancing guidelines.
Games and formal practices will have to wait. Parents could be relegated to drop off and pick up duties only and their children may have to be dressed in all but their skates when they arrive at the arena. Until dressing rooms and/or benches can be properly sanitized, they’ll be off limits.
As for the folks in competitive hockey, forget about travelling out of province or even out of the city for the foreseeable future.
“First and foremost, the number one motivation is to make sure everyone stays safe and healthy,” Hockey Canada chief executive officer Tom Renney said in a telephone interview with Postmedia.
Hockey Canada officials haven’t been idle while the rinks have gone silent. When the pandemic shut down arenas across the country in mid-March, the organization met (through conference calls) with its 13 member branches every day for the following three weeks. Since then, they’ve met three times per week, putting together healthy and safety and regulatory task forces that address return to play guidelines.
“We discuss everything,” said Renney. “What will it look like, when can it happen, alternative strategies (for practice and games).”
The expectation is there won’t be a one size fits all approach at the outset. Hockey Canada will take its cues from national, provincial and municipal health officials. Children playing in British Columbia or New Brunswick, for instance, could get the go-ahead to be on the ice before their peers in Ontario or Quebec. Additionally, some cities within the same province could be a step ahead of others.
“It’s not a race to be first, it’s a race to be right,” said Renney. “When you take the competitive element out of it…there’s a bigger game that we’re playing and we’re very conscientious of that.
The most important thing is to have (approval) of the provincial authority. We would be remiss if we thought everyone could start at the same time.”
With fears across the country that a potential second wave of the virus could hit if children return to school in September, Hockey Canada will also be keeping a close eye on how boards of education approach the new world.
The numbers are intriguing. Of the 6,500 Covid-19 deaths in Canada, nobody under 19 has died of the disease. The under-19 age bracket is responsible for fewer than six per cent of the confirmed novel coronavirus cases, but once there’s a mass return to school in Canada, strict social distancing guidelines will be in place.
“That will be a good barometer,” said Renney. “What’s the number of instructors (per child)? What’s the length of a (school) day?”
What works at one school board in the country, of course, might not be acceptable elsewhere.
Which brings us to the more localized hockey associations in Ottawa, who receive the messages that have been filtered down from Hockey Canada to Hockey Eastern Ontario.
The Nepean Minor Hockey Association, which had 2,600 registered players in 2019-20, originally set an April 1 deadline for registrations for the upcoming season. The next tentative plan was for a June registration deadline, but even that is unlikely now.
“There’s not a lot we can do,” said NMHA president Brenda Neumann. “We have to wait and see what will happen to see what our registration costs will be. What are the charges for ice time? Will there be referees or no referees? And a large chunk of what the kids pay is insurance costs. There are waivers and disclaimers and all that stuff that comes into play. Even our team jerseys from last season haven’t been returned.”
The NMHA has returned the August ice it previously bought from the city of Ottawa for competitive tryouts. There’s no chance of that happening now.
The association has sent out surveys to its membership, asking what changes they would be willing to accept.
“Will there be three on three or four on four at some point?” asked Neumann. “What will the state of team sports become? Everyone loves the game and wants to do the best they can, but until we know what direction this is going to take, we don’t have that information to give out.”
Renney is fully aware that all the uncertainty will most likely lead to a drop in registration numbers across Canada.
Until there’s some clarity on what’s next, though, hockey loving children like the five and three year old down the street will have to be content with dreaming of the NHL while playing road hockey.