Hockey during Covid

The winter hockey season came to an end last year with the Covid outbreak.  We never got a chance to play the last couple games of the regular season, and there were no playoffs.  Then summer hockey season was cancelled.  I switched my team over to a different league and the current winter season just started tonight.  Hockey is now very weird.

We need to show up at the arena with masks on.  Once we are in the dressing room we can take the masks off.  We have 15 minutes to dress and get on the ice  Everyone has to have their own water bottle.  There are no handshakes after the game.  After the game we return to the dressing room.  The showers are closed and we have 15 minutes to get undressed and leave.  Masks have to be put back on to exit the building.  We are limited to a roster of 16 active players and over a block of three weeks we only play two other teams.  This keeps us in a cohort of less than 50 players.  After that three week block of games we take a two week rest and then start another three week block of games.  We have to maintain the same roster of 16 active players for each block, with no spares allowed.  We can change out some some players after our two week rest period.  This is all very regimented, and very strange.

We played our first game of the new season, which was also our first game in the new league.  We have now moved to the Alberta Men's Hockey League.  The name is a little deceiving as women are also allowed to play.  We have two women on our team, and the team we played against had three.  We had an afternoon game at Argyll Arena today that started at 4:30.  We played a team called the Knights.  We jumped out to an early 5-2 lead, but then they battled back and made it 5-4.  With a couple of minutes left they pulled their goalie but we got an empty net goal to seal the game with a 6-4 victory.  

It felt really good to get back together again with my teammates.  The exercise was wonderful.  It was a bit of a challenge as I have not been on skates for six months, and my stamina was sorely lacking.  But things will get better as the season moves along.  Looking forward to the next game on Monday night.