RoughRiders Hockey Club Pause Hockey Operations

November 13, 2020
For Immediate Release: RoughRiders Hockey Club Pause Hockey Operations

Hello RoughRiders Family,

Tonight, the Executive Board of Directors met to discuss the current state of COVID-19 community spread. Iowa is seeing its largest number of positive cases and hospitalizations throughout the state. Cedar Rapids is leading the nation in new COVID cases. This has caused many school districts to move to virtual schooling for the next several weeks in response. In the past 96 hours, RRHC has also seen 15% of the club move into quarantine because of exposure cases, and several positives within the families of players and players themselves. It is important to note that we have had no known outbreaks or direct exposures because of our stringent protocols within the club. We have protected our players, families, and staff as well as we can with these protocols, contact tracing, and implementation of masks at practices. With that said, it is the feeling of the Executive Board that by continuing operations at this time it will be putting players’, families’, and staffs’ health in harm’s way despite our many efforts to mitigate COVID-19 exposure. The community spread, and the exposure rate of our families has come to a threshold.

The Executive Board voted unanimously to pause all (8U, 10U, 12U, 14U and High School) hockey operations starting November 14, 2020 at 12:01am through November 30, 2020 11:59pm. We then anticipate we will be able to start practices after that if the situation has improved. Following the restart of practices, youth games will be allowed to commence after the weekend of December 6, 2020. This is a dynamic situation and if this wave of cases rectifies sooner these dates will be re-explored.

We are not alone in this. Other associations within Midwest Amateur Hockey have also similarly announced a temporary pause over the next two to three weeks as their communities grapple with the significant increase in community spread.

Over the next few days, our Director will be adding in daily COVID-19 questionnaires events into TeamSnap. We would like to have our families continue to enter their data semi-daily as this will provide more information to our COVID-19 management team. This information would be extremely helpful in getting us back on the ice as soon as possible. By having this information and knowing how our families are doing we can get a sense of whether things are improving or not. Please be on the lookout for that update.

All coaching staffs will be providing at-home workouts including off-ice training and shooting, and food and nutrition journals, and goal sheets to ensure our players are still making progress to achieve their individual goals within the game of hockey.

We will be extending the youth season through the end of March and possibly the first weekend of April to potentially include a home tournament in Cedar Rapids or Coralville. More information and registration coming soon. No decisions on refund and policies where decided upon as this is an evolving and ever-changing situation. All financials will be determined at the end of the season once we have a clearer picture of what is and not affected.

As always, our goal, even more so through this pandemic, is to make decisions that are to the benefit, health, and safety of all players, families, and staff and we will not waiver from what is right for you, a supporter of RRHC.

Sincerely,

Ken Brown
RRHC President

Shane Gailushas
RRHC Vice President

Hunter Leland
RRHC Treasurer

Brian Krall
RRHC Secretary

Shawn Lochner
RRHC Member At-Large