Power Hockey Development Inc.

Canadian minor hockey faces uncertain start, shorter season in face of COVID-19

MARCH 24, 2020

There was not enough time for Jason Nobili to read the whole note before the game, so he skimmed it on his way to the bench. He read it more thoroughly at intermission, which is when it became clear he was coaching in one of the last minor hockey games that would be played anywhere in Canada.

The coaches told the team captain, who suggested they not tell the rest of the players. It was a playoff game between two under-18 teams in the Greater Toronto Hockey League, and it was the day Hockey Canada cancelled all sanctioned activities — every practice, every game — because of COVID-19.

They told the players in the third period. They spoke with the other team’s coaching staff. For some of the players, that night in Mississauga, Ont., would be the final game of their minor hockey careers. So the two teams, filled with students in Grade 11 and Grade 12, hatched an unusual postgame plan.

“This is kind of a surreal moment here: Let’s do a big group picture,” Nobili said with a chuckle. “All the boys were climbing around each other at centre ice. We took pictures. Sort of made the best of it.”

Arenas across the country have shuttered in reaction to a pandemic that has gripped the world, and the organizations in charge are not sure when they might re-open. They are developing contingency plans, determining the fate of postseason banquets and high-performance camps, new try-out schedules and the financial fallout from an unfolding global catastrophe.

At this point, it is not clear whether next season will begin on time.

“It’s really, really difficult to say, ‘This is what we’re going to do, and this is when we’re going to do it,’” said Glen McCurdie, senior vice-president, insurance and risk management at Hockey Canada. “Because the reality is: We have no idea.”

The most optimistic estimates begin at eight weeks. Others go deeper into the summer and beyond.

“We’re the same as everybody else,” McCurdie said. “It’s really tough to put a contingency in place when you don’t know when it’s going to start.”

Hockey Canada has been holding three calls a week with its members — on Monday, Wednesday and Friday — to exchange real-time information about the challenges at the grassroots level. (Questions at the national level will also have to be answered, with the possibility of delaying annual camps.)

Scott Oakman is executive director at the GTHL, the largest minor hockey league in the world, with an enrollment of more than 40,000 players. For now, he suggested the ideal plan would be for things to be up and running again by mid-to-late August.

“Even with that, I think it would require us to do some season modification,” he said. “Maybe a shorter season — not significantly shorter, but we’re trying to map that out now.”

Spring tryouts have been cancelled in Ontario, which means the entire, cascading system would have to be moved to the fall. The change in the rhythm of hockey’s schedule will likely be felt before then, with clubs and associations not able to collect registration fees like they normally would in the spring.

Many of those organizations have to place deposits on ice for the fall, Oakman said, and without those registration fees, some may experience serious cash flow issues. He said the GTHL would look at ways it might be able to help ease some of those challenges.

In the meantime, the GTHL has closed its offices, with all staff working from home.

“I’ve said to people along the way: Hopefully people judge this as over-reacting,” Oakman said. “Because that will determine the steps we took had an impact on how this played out, and I’d rather be guilty of that in this day and age, in what we’re facing.”

The NHL announced it was suspending play the same day the GTHL held its final games. But unlike its minor hockey counterpart, the NHL announced it was merely placing its games on “pause,” with hopes of restarting once the worst of the pandemic had passed.

“The word ‘pause’ is one we were thinking of using,” said Ken Wolff, a member of the GTHL’s board of directors. “That was where we went at the very beginning.”

He said it did not make sense for long, though. Hockey Canada cancelled the season the same day the provincial government in Ontario announced all public schools would remain closed for another two weeks after March Break.

If the children were not in school, it did not make sense to think they should be inside a hockey rink.

“It’s kind of hard to describe, because sitting here today with what’s happening around the world, it seems like it should have been straightforward,” said Wolff. “If you look back on it, ‘Well, of course you shouldn’t be gathering in groups of people.’

“It looks now like, ‘Why didn’t you think about it immediately?’ But it certainly was harder at that moment to try to figure out what we should do.”

It was the right decision, he said, adding the GTHL received minimal protest.

Nobili did not protest, either. He is the coach of the AAA Toronto Titans, the U18 team that was en route to a 4-1 win over the Toronto Young Nationals the night the season reached its sudden finale.

It had been a good series with the Young Nationals. Too good to end with a simple handshake. Before social distancing became a part of everyday life, they gathered together in a common embrace at centre ice for a picture.

“It just felt right,” Nobili said. “The boys, they just sort of inter-mixed among each other. They seemed to have a little fun with it, too.”

Sean Fitz-Gerald - The Athletic - Toronto

www.theathletic.com