By Patrick Newhook/January 6, 2022
The Southern Shore is home to several thriving recreational hockey leagues, and with COVID-19 cases increasing daily, it’s getting more and more challenging to keep them running while living under a pandemic.
Justin Walsh, president of the Down The Shore Hockey League, described that group as a serious league featuring a lot of friendly competition for the 50 to 60 players who take part.
“We play every Thursday night, same group of fellows, usually it’s good, it’s a league that’s competitive, not too aggressive, but it’s competitive for say a beer league,” said Walsh.
The players range from 20 to 40 year old’s, with members from along the Shore and even some from St. John’s. They have four teams with sponsors.
“COVID has messed it up the last couple of years, but usually we try to get 18 regular season games in and then we play the play-offs which is all four teams in the league… You could play anywhere up to 28 games if it goes five games in each round in the playoffs, or you could play 20 or 21 games,” said Walsh.
With recent spikes in COVID-19 cases and with the province moving into Alert Level 3 on December 22, the future of the Down the Shore Hockey Leagues season is in question.
“If it stays at Level 3, we can continue to play, if it moves any higher we’ll have to shut it down,” said Walsh.
Managing a hockey league during a pandemic isn’t easy.
“It’s a bit of a pain especially when fellows are paying registration money and then the league gets cut short, so you’ve got to work around that and see how much money you’ve got to give the fellows back to ensure they want to come back next year because they didn’t play the whole year,” said Walsh. “If it stays at Level 3 we can continue to play, if it moves any higher we’ll have to shut it down.”
Since the interview, the province has gone into Alert Level 4 as of January 4, which further increases the amount of restrictions in place for gatherings.
Walsh later confirmed the league may be cancelled for the rest of the season.
“As of now it means that we are shut down, we have no more hockey,” said Walsh. “As long as it stays in Level 4 like this.”
Walsh is waiting to see what the government says next to see if they may be able to start up again, but realizes they may have to wait until September, COVID-19 permitting.
“Now they (the provincial government) say that they’ll update it in two weeks and say how it’s going, but once there’s no hockey in the arena for two or three weeks, they’ll end up taking the ice off I would say,” said Walsh.
Despite being disappointed the league likely won’t get to finish its season, Walsh does understand why this is happening.
“I’m on board with it, they done the right thing and shut everything down,” he said.
