The Saskatchewan Hockey Association (SHA) isn’t expecting for respective leagues in the province to return to game play before the end of March, due to COVID-19 restrictions
In a news release issued on Thursday, January 14, the SHA said that during a virtual meeting with all provincial sport governing bodies; Ken Dueck from the provincial government’s business response team (BRT) announced that there would be no consideration of a return to play for games for at least four weeks, and that a return to game play is unlikely to happen before the end of March.
The current state of “training” with eight players 18 years of age and younger will continue.
The province announced an extension to current COVID-19 restrictions until Jan. 29. Previously, the restrictions introduced on Dec. 14 were set to expire on Jan 15.
“This certainly was not the news that the SHA, nor all other winter sports was expecting. With the current rate of positive cases per 100,000 people placing Saskatchewan near the top in Canada, the likelihood of things changing before the end of March is looking bleak,” SHA stated in the news release.
The SHA is currently reviewing the state of the game and intends on conducting zone meetings within the next two weeks, and is reminding people to be aware that the landscape related to COVID-19 in the province can change at any time.