WESTLOCK - The Westlock Senior ‘AA’ Warriors won’t be taking to the ice this winter as the North Central Hockey League has cancelled the 2020/21 season.
In an Oct. 14 meeting via Zoom, member teams voted 8-1 to pull the pin on the upcoming year due to COVID-19 — the league hopes to continue operations next fall.
Warriors player/coach Mike Ivey said they’re disappointed by the cancellation, but understand the current realities. Initially, the NCHL had stated they were hopeful to get a season in and had pegged Dec. 4 as a possible start date.
“We were definitely looking forward to another year … it’s going to be weird. All of us are getting older, but we still love to play. It’s disappointing for sure, but not a huge surprise to be honest,” said Ivey, noting the league did look at a reduced schedule. “COVID has adjusted all of our lives for sure. It’s just the reality of the situation.”
Each community has different rules surrounding their rinks, making any standardization near impossible. In the case of Fort Saskatchewan, Ivey noted that players would have had to have shown up in their gear ready to play, then exit the arena before changing back into their street clothes.
“We had lots of different factors at all the different rinks. Trying to line all that up didn’t make sense for a lot of the teams.”
Ultimately, Ivey is hopeful they’ll be able to reform and get back on the ice for next fall. As always, he gave a shout out to all of their supporters.
“We have a good core group of guys who want to keep playing. So we’re hopeful this doesn’t knock us back too hard,” he said. “I just want to thank our game-day volunteers, sponsors and our fans for their support over the last numbers of years. We hope to see them again next year.”
