When Will Hockey Be Back?

On March 22nd, 2020 the Government of Alberta will make a decision on moving to Step 3 of the reopening plan. This means that hockey can potentially resume. If this is, indeed, the case, that is great news!

That being said, and the recent history of how things went for Step 2, a delay is quite possible. We are prepared for this. Our original plan was to close team registration on March 24th, 2021 if hockey is to resume on time.

However, if a delay is in the cards, we will shift this, and other deadlines to match the pace of reopening.

In other words, team registration will close two weeks before the start of the summer season. The summer season will start 2 weeks after the announcement is made that hockey (adult sports) will go ahead.

At this point we have absolutely no doubt that the summer season will go ahead! More people are getting vaccinated every day, and by the end of June, everyone who wants a vaccine will be able to get one according to the plan laid out by the AHS.

Sure we may not start on time, but we will start, and we will be playing soon.

What is that going to look like? To start we are preparing to operate under the same rules placed on us by the government in the winter. Meaning, there will be cohorts, but your team can still have a full roster!

At some point when everyone has had a chance to get the vaccine, we anticipate the rules will change, and cohorts will not longer be required. If this is not the case, we can still have a season with full rosters.

To summarize. Yes the summer season will go ahead (we don’t know exactly when, hopefully April 7th). Most likely there will be cohorts in place for some, or the whole length season. Your team can have 16 players on the roster (what we call full roster size).

Thank you for your patience, and for choosing the NCHL.

We are all in this together, and we will figure out how to navigate all this successfully, as we have done over the past year.

The NCHL – A Better Way To Play