CANMORE – Canmore Eagles fans will have to wait to see their team in action after the league postponed the start of the regular season.
On Friday (Aug. 14), the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL) decided it was unable to enter regular season competition this September due to the current protocols of Hockey Alberta’s Return to Hockey Plan and Stage 2 of the province’s relaunch.
Instead, the league will commence the 2020-21 campaign with a development season, which will allow teams to actively prepare for the upcoming regular season while providing players an opportunity for training for a tentative Dec. 1 start. Players will have to pay a fee to the teams to join the development camps that are permitted to begin as early as Aug. 31 in all 15 AJHL communities and will run until the league embarks on regular season play.
“This model is not an absolute science,” said Eagles general manager and head coach, Andrew Milne. “Some teams will be able to offer this and some will struggle – they may not have the resources to pull this off the way it has been designed.”
Milne is convinced the AJHL clubs based in larger urban centres such as Calgary, Okotoks and Spruce Grove will be able to run the training camps more efficiently compared to the smaller rural communities, which Canmore falls into. One of the main concerns for Milne at this time is finding billets for the players.
“For me to bring 23 players into Canmore and try to billet them with no season in mind is going to be very difficult. It’s the million dollar question. To bring players in and train is one thing. Finding them housing is the real challenge," Milne said.
“Having a player stay with you while actively making our community better through playing games, to engaging with the community in events is a rewarding experience for the billet family and players. Eliminate that from the equation and you’re basically just renting out your bedroom.”
The tentative plan for the Eagles is to run a development camp through September, then send the players home for a month and then bring them back in November before a tentative Dec. 1 start. If the regular season does not start on Dec. 1, Milne said the club will not bring players back.
Aside from the issue of billeting players, health and safety of everyone involved in the organizations from players to coaches to trainers and billet families is a top priority for Milne and the league.
“As anxious as we all are to return to competition and embrace our communities, public safety and the safety of our athletes has to be the priority,” stated AJHL Commissioner Ryan Bartoshyk in a press release.
The league’s development season outline meets the current health and safety requirements of the Government of Alberta and aligns with Hockey Canada’s Return to Hockey Safety Guidelines and Hockey Alberta’s Return to Hockey Plan in focusing on the safety and wellbeing of all participants. In addition, teams will commit to using the ABTraceTogether App.
“We have these players coming to our communities from all over. Another question is what do they do in their down time? How do we keep track of them? I don’t want to be that one guy whose hockey club is the reason for the COVID outbreak,” said Milne. “I am apprehensive and unsure what this will look like for our program.”
When provincial regulations allow for the regular season to start, the league will remove pre-determined blocks of games as part of a contingency plan should the season be delayed when the schedule was announced in June.
