Covid Winter Sports

Winter sports are happening, but don’t hold your breath. As of a school committee vote on December 9th, basketball and ice hockey have been approved to start skills and drills practices, and will revisit scheduling games in early January. Indoor track is considered high risk, so there won’t be meets because they take place in a confined space with a large number of people.

Basketball will have several rule changes because it is a contact sport making it high risk. The rule changes include; no halftime, 6 periods instead of 4, balls disinfected between the periods, a coin toss will replace the jump ball, enhancing the 5 second rule (you can’t hold or dribble the ball for more than 5 seconds), no touching an off ball player, 4 players in the free throw lane, no under the basket endline plays, if you plan on fouling a player at the end of the game you have to let the official know beforehand, and on inbound plays, the defender will have to remain 6 feet from the inbounder.

Some of the rule changes for both hockey and basketball include; masks at all times, no spectators, physical distancing rules as best they can, no locker rooms, no post or pregame handshakes, and no huddles.

Hockey has an abundance of rule changes as well, such as, only one person allowed in the penalty box at a time, if someone else gets put in the box they must stay 6 feet apart or stand outside of the box (not on the ice), faceoffs have to stay 6 feet apart, only one defensive and one offensive player allowed in any scrum along the boards, a third player added into the mix will be penalized.

The hockey team is looking forward to the season they will have. Coming after a very successful year last year, winning states, the boys were very excited to see what this year would bring for them. As things were changing they didn’t know what to expect but stayed as optimistic as they could. Recently the board made a tough decision to pull Frontier out of the mix. This is a huge loss for them and a huge upset for all of the seniors. The hockey team is a co-op mixed up of the Franklin county schools, Frontier makes a huge part of the hockey team. Most of the returning varsity players are Frontier students, so losing them really puts the GHS team in an awkward spot. COVID really is changing everything, but the decision was for the safety of the players, as upsetting as it may, it is for the best..

With all the rule changes this season should be interesting. No one knows what to expect but that’s been a common theme with COVID so far. As the season soon approaches all players can do is prepare and stay as safe and healthy as possible. As tough as the season is looking to be, these athletes just need to stay optimistic for what’s to come.