Ø Illinois has the most restrictions on non-contact youth hockey due to the high-risk designation compared to our neighboring states. Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana are all allowing competitive play and Mass and Minnesota recently lowered their classifications allowing for game play. Hockey families are passionate, motivated, and collective and will travel for competitive game plan. This travel will only be made simpler given the fact most Illinois students are now remote learning making it easy to do road/plane trips to other states without “missing” school. These road trips will result in additional unnecessary and unavoidable multiple points of contact with people and surfaces for not just the skaters but the more at risk and more likely to spread parents of the skaters. These families and skaters will be spending time at airports, gas stations, restaurants, hotel pools, hotel lobbies, hotel bars, parks, etc. and then coming back to Illinois. This excursion will result in a significantly higher risk of contracting Covid than allowing youth skaters to play locally within Illinois with additional safety protocols. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/youth-sports.html

Keep them safe in Illinois with common sense safety protocols. 

Ø CDC contact tracing is conducted for close contacts which are defined by the CDC as any individual within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/open-america/contact-tracing-resources.html Depending on level, youth hockey league games range from 33 minutes to 51 minutes and over the course of that game there are typically three rotating shifts which are less than one minute. As the shifts are always rotating a skater is rarely consistently matched with the exact same shift from the opposing team and would never be one on one with an opposing team skater for 15 minutes. Per Finnish analytics website Wisehockey and a Eastern Michigan University study ‘close range exposure time’ during youth hockey games even with full contact allowed ranges from 3-4 minutes of a player being within 2 meters of another and less than three seconds of immediate proximity of actual contact. As one can surmise, the game format naturally reduces the risk of Covid transmission. https://wisehockey.com/wisehockey-helps-to-assess-covid-19-risks-in-youth-hockey/

Ø As it relates to PPE, there are a couple of significant differences between youth hockey and professional hockey. Professional skaters are only required to wear visors to protect their eyes. In youth hockey, skaters are required to wear a cage and becoming even more popular are bubble masks like the face shields worn by essential workers. This cage and bubble mask prevent youth skaters from touching their mouth, face, and eyes; key spreaders of Covid. The bubble mask prevents a larger portion of respiratory droplets than the cage. See supprting details in this article.

Ø The puck never contacts the player, the puck is touched by a stick which is held by a hand covered by a glove.

Ø Hockey players do not share protective equipment nor sticks.

Ø Ice arenas are vast in space, the ice surface alone is 17,000 sq.ft. which equates to 1,416 a sq.ft. per player assuming twelve players on the ice. The playing surface alone is 3.5 times larger than a basketball court which was classified as a medium risk sport

Ø The air is never stagnant as it is constantly being cycled to cool the rink and according to a study by referenced to the state of Mass rinks have ventilation levels that are generally 2-2.5 times the industry indoor air quality standard. 

Ø Hockey teams are generally smaller than other sports team rosters allowing for appropriate spacing on the bench. 

Ø While other sports were awarded with mitigations to make their games safer and lower further their risk, hockey like 31 other sports were lumped into a high-risk category with no considerations for our venues or mitigations in place. https://cdn4.sportngin.com/attachments/document/1cb2-2218846/Phase_4_All_Sports_Guidelines.pdf#_ga=2.93721304.413824675.1597367107-1678466044.1597367106 Examples of in-place mitigates used over the summer:

o Players arrive fully dressed thereby eliminating any contact in a small space. 

o No lengthy game intermissions therefore no need to enter a locker room during a game. 

o Limiting fans to allow appropriate social distancing in the stands.

o Separate entrances and exits for fans and players. 

o Temperature screenings upon entry for both players and fans.

Ø On a professional, macro level, the NHL is back in action in Edmonton and Toronto and pros have recorded zero positive cases from over 7,000 test results. Meanwhile MLB struggles to keep its season going due to Covid outbreaks. 

o On a local, micro level, Chicago hosted 200 team hockey tournament in July that attracted teams from all over the U.S. The tournament used sensible precautions (aka mitigations) and there were no known cases stemming from the tournament. 

o On a personal level, my three sons all of whom are at different levels have skated all summer at various rinks and there has been not a single reported case of Covid.

Ø Unemployment is understandably a significant issue for the State of Illinois and will only grow more so with the shutdown of youth hockey. Coaches, park districts, rink managers, maintenance personnel, concession workers and so on will join the list of unemployed further increasing the States obligations.

Ø It is well known ice rinks and hockey clubs operate on razor thin margins. The implications of essentially cancelling all youth hockey is staggering. 

o Most rinks and clubs are near shuttering their doors as they struggle to recover after the spring.

o Cancelling the Fall season would force the rinks to go almost a year without significant usage which is astronomical for a facility with such high fixed costs. 

Given the retail fallout from the pandemic and change to online preference the state does not need more abandoned large box buildings. 

Ø Hockey is a choice. A skater’s family knows their own household and can choose an appropriate amount of risk for their family given this knowledge of high risk or immune compromised individuals within their households. Unlike schools or many other businesses forced to shut down, coaches and player are making a conscious decision related to their personal risk profile to play and or coach the game.

Ø For some skaters missing one season will result in that skater never returning to the sport. We have all seen how difficult it is to keep our children active when the only outlets available to them our remote learning and video games like the Spring lockdown. The long term fall out from health and emotional wellbeing will be much more significant for the state than risk of Covid transmission during a fast moving, short in duration, limited contact, fully covered bodies in a youth hockey game.