Both the Guelph Minor Hockey Association (GMHA) and the Guelph Girls Hockey Association (GGHA) have cancelled all games heading into the winter break amid a flurry of COVID-19 cases linked to players and instructions to isolate from Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
The GMHA has cancelled all games until Dec. 23, while the GGHA has cancelled all games until Dec. 26.
“Over the last week, there has been an influx of activities in our association with respect to COVID-19. We have been affected by some positive cases, but as well, new isolation requirements for players and families who have come in close contact with someone who has tested positive. Letters issued to some of our families from Public Health have indicated a required 10 days of isolation, regardless of vaccination status or negative test result,” reads a program update posted to the Guelph Minor Hockey Association website.
The decision to cancel the games did not come as a directive from Public Health, rather as a proactive decision from the league to curb the spread which became rampant over the last few days.
“This is a directive we took on our own,” said Chris Ste. Croix, acting president of the GMHA, in an interview. “We had over this weekend a significant amount of teams impacted by either close contacts or were in isolation.”
The league had seen several games cancelled already and opted to survey the teams to determine how many teams and to what extent these teams were being affected.
Ste. Croix said the league wanted to stop the crossover of players being called up to different teams.
“What was happening, was on the weekend we were getting almost hourly updates from teams that were affected by this,” said Ste. Croix. “Because we were seeing in general out in society in the increase in Omicron spread we, and so didn’t want to wait to see what the week would hold but rather make the decision right away. We felt that we didn’t want to wait for anything worse to happen.”
Ste. Croix did not have the number of players who were infected or required to isolate on hand, but he said it was a significant number of players that had been impacted over the last few days.
Practices are still open, however, some teams have elected to cancel all practices, with the sharing of resources temporarily stopped and cohorts of kids once again implemented.
For practices that are still running, the decision to participate will come from parents.
“Please understand this was a very difficult decision, as nobody on the GGHA Board of Directors wants to cancel hockey activities. We understand the importance of physical activity for young people, and as such our plan is to have practices go forward as planned, with game ice to be used for additional practice. Our hope is that public health measures, along with the opportunity for reduced transmission that cancelled games and school holidays provide, mean that we can come back in the new year with relatively normal hockey like we have had so far this season,” reads an update from the GGHA.
