To All Hockey Families,

SCAHA has, this evening, after careful consideration, unanimously decided to call a halt to the Semifinal and Championship Series play this coming weekend. We have cancelled the remaining balance of postseason play for all A/BB/B levels of Youth Hockey this coming March 14-15.

After a risk assessment regarding preventative measures to manage the spread of COVID-19, we determined that there is only one guaranteed way to help stop the spread and that is to not host the remaining weekend of play. We considered the options of splitting the event across several facilities and/or relegating spectators to a mere few people however, in light of the WHO recommendation for social distancing we determined that neither of those options met the WHO recommendation.

When we look at it through this lens, our only way to guarantee not contributing to the spread is to halt play and cancel the remainder of the playoffs here in SCAHA. Nothing we do is worth the risk of perpetuating the spread of the virus.

Canceling the remainder of postseason play is, clearly, the right thing to do and in doing so we are acting as responsible civic leaders. We have no doubt that everyone in our hockey community will agree and support this decision.

Finally, we did discuss postponing for two weeks vs. cancelling, but we, as a Board, do not want to mislead anyone with hopes that restrictions may be lifted in time to salvage remaining games. The season is complete as of April 1 which leaves a little over 2 weeks, and rescheduling is clearly not feasible.

We will be notifying the impacted facilities and organizations to make sure we wind things down correctly.

Good luck to all, stay safe, and see you all at the rink next season.

Sincerely,

The Entire SCAHA Board