What are your future plans for Hockey?

[Guest]

Right now, just want to get my kid on the ice to skate, see friends. I don't care if there's a fall travel league or not. Frankly, I think it could do a lot of families and kids good to dial back, put sports back in perspective as part of a whole life and not have the rest of life revolve around crazy car travel and umpteen games in one weekend. If the most rinks/leagues can safely offer is in-house and no travel, that's fine.

Honestly, I think kids are going to have just as much fun even if the most they get out of this fall is some skating practice, stick and puck, drills and maybe some pick-up and scrimmage games. I've heard more than one kid say the worst part about playing is the parents in the stands, so if parents need to stay out and figure out something else to do with their lives than make kids miserable over not skating/shooting the puck/whatever they yell at kids... for a lot of kids, this may be the best fall ever.

And it will be interesting to see what a summer of staying off the ice, getting a mental break from the grind and really cross-training can do for "serious" players' game.

As for safety at the rink, I'd be ok with kids getting dressed in the car, walking in with hard guards and mask, getting on the ice, skating/drills, getting off, walking right back outside again. If that's what it takes, no argument from us, we're in. If practice is early a.m. before dawn because rinks need to spread out ice with fewer kids on a session, that's fine. If it means teams do more off ice together, I'm fine with that.  So is my kid.

[Guest]

From Leaders chart path back to playing fields for children - Sports - The

"From New Zealand to Austria to the northwest corner of Utah, leaders are releasing regulations that have potential to impact everything from workouts at gyms to youth baseball leagues to elite-level training with an eye on the Olympics.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee distributed a seven-page set of guidelines of its own this week that called on participants to “self-monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 twice daily,” as one of several steps in a multilayered return scenario."

....

All entities are developing their plans with the knowledge that lives are at risk and that a single outbreak among teammates or training partners has the potential to shut down a facility or derail an entire season.

The guidelines reviewed by The Associated Press had several things in common:

• All returns will begin with individual training or in very small groups.

• Very few spectators, if any, will be allowed. The USOPC also released a 13-page guide about sports event planning that asks, among other questions, “Can the financial risk be mitigated through means such as event insurance, establishing financial impact timelines for cancellation, reschedule the event for a later date, or negotiate a contract that limits negative financial impact?”

• Almost every participant will be subject to temperature checks and some sort of verification that he or she is healthy and hasn’t been in recent contact with anyone who has COVID-19.

• Participants will be grouped in “bubbles” allowing to train with a specific group of people that will not change until restrictions are relaxed further.