Ontario Hockey releases ridiculous COVID-19 rules for upcoming minor hockey season

If your kid plays minor hockey in Ontario, they better be good at poke checking…

The Ontario Hockey Federation has released its list of rules for the upcoming 2020-21 minor hockey season and… well see for yourself:

The Ontario Hockey Federation has released its rules for the upcoming 2020-2021 hockey season: 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 only, no face-offs, no contact, & must remain stick length apart. Are you still putting your kids in organized hockey? Let us know here or by email at [email protected]

No 5 on 5 play. No face-offs. No contact. 

Call it whatever you want but this is NOT hockey.

How are you going to enforce social distancing during a hockey game? “Must remain a stick length apart”… are you KIDDING me!? How is that even possible? Sorry to sound like an old man here, but this is complete and utter nonsense to me.

The truth of things is that these are children we’re talking about and there’s  absolutely NO way that the kids are going to follow these rules. And then what happens when they break the rules? Do they get a penalty? Are we literally re-writing the rulebook because of COVID-19? Again… nonsense.

If children can attend school this month with hundreds of other children around them, surely we can come up a way for 20 kids to play a hockey game, no?

For what it's worth, other minor hockey organizations across Canada have revealed their plans for the upcoming season and while there are changes, there's nothing as drastic as this proposed play from the Ontario Hockey Federation. For example, BC Hockey has enacted strict team size limitations of 17 skaters and 2 goalies per team. Social distancing won't be observed on the ice, but children are expected to keep an appropriate space from each other while off the ice. Additionally, players will be required to dress at home rather that at the rink. Practices will focus on more drills that promote individual skills, rather than team tactics. So expect more skating and stickhandling drills as opposed to checking or bodychecking drills. Pretty reasonable, right? It'll be interesting to see what kind of changes are made in Ontario once BC and other provinces are able to prove that their restrictions work.