February 3, 2020

Hello SVHA Families:

By now, most of you have seen or heard the news yesterday from Hockey Alberta announcing that the remainder of the 2020-21 season will be cancelled for all minor hockey associations in Alberta including league play at all levels effective immediately.  Today, Hockey Calgary also confirmed and announced the cancellation of minor hockey in Calgary.  Please see the attached bulletin from both Hockey Alberta and Hockey Calgary for more information.

While we are disappointed for all the players in SVHA, we must accept this decision based on the most recent government restrictions.  In a best case scenario, hockey would not have been able to resume until March 1st at the earliest in Stage 2 of the AHS' latest guidelines which included hospitalization numbers below 450.  There was also a lot of uncertainty about what the protocols would be if hockey did resume (eg. physically distanced practice, limits on number of skaters on the ice, no game play, no spectators, etc...).

With the cancellation of the season, we wanted to let you know that we will turn our efforts to working on providing appropriate refunds in a timely manner. We are awaiting information from Hockey Canada, Hockey Alberta, and Hockey Calgary on what fees will be rebated by each of those organizations for us to pass onto our members.  Once that is determined, we will look at our fixed costs and provide appropriate refunds based on variable costs.  As a Board, our next step will be for us to determine if SVHA will be running a spring development program and what that may look like.  Without any certainty and guidance from AHS at this point in time, we might not be able to share details for this program until AHS provides their guidance.  Our goal will be to be prepared and get the players on the ice as quickly and safely as possible.  We want to first provide the refunds and then allow members to choose to opt in for future player development separately if they are interested and we are able to provide a program given the restrictions.

We will provide more information as we learn more from Hockey Alberta and Hockey Calgary.  Have a great day!