Much like every other sport right now, the Lacombe Minor Hockey season is going to look different this year until the province can completely go back to our pre-pandemic ways.

President of Lacombe Minor Hockey Lori McCrea says Hockey Canada, Hockey Alberta, and Alberta Health has given them the guidelines to work off, which includes keeping to your own team cohort and coming to the arena already dressed in your gear to limited use of the locker rooms to just putting your skates on.  

“The month of October is going to be doing strictly player development. We won’t be playing any games probably until the middle of November. We’re going to spend a lot of time just developing player skills for the first part of the season, which is something we’ve always talked about doing but just never had the time, but this year we actually have the time.”

She says their practice times during the week will be used to help develop those skills, while they are currently working on some ways to get some scrimmage games in during the weekend, while still staying within their age group cohort.

McCrea says the fees are the same this year, but they will look at potential refunds at the end of the season if the kids don't get the amount of ice time they paid for.

“We have told our members that if we get to the end of the year and we haven’t given them the ice time and things that they usually get, that we will look at giving refunds. For right now, we have to plan our budget around a normal season… because they are still going to get their two ice times a week for now, and hopefully we can keep everybody entertained and engaged long enough to get through to the time when we can play games, which we anticipate to be the middle of November, providing nothing changes.”

She says if all goes well, they are hoping things change in the middle of November, a time when the Alberta is anticipated to look at entering stage 3 of our re-launch.

Registration is still open for Lacombe Minor hockey, more information is available by clicking here to go to their website, lacombeminorhockey.com.