MBA Season Resumes
On Wednesday last week the province announced that sport competition could resume beginning February 14th, as previously shared with all member clubs the MBA will restart the season of February 19th and 20th. The MBA board met February 10th to discuss what the remainder of this season will look like.
Dates of Play
The season will be extended into April, the revised dates of play will be as follows:
U10 Boys and Girls
February 19, 26
March 5, 12, 26
April 2, 9
U12 Boys and Girls
February 19, 26
March 5, 12, 26
April 2, 9
U14 Boys and Girls
February 20, 27
March 6, 13, 27
April 3, 10
U16 Boys and U16/18 Girls
February 20, 27
March 6, 13, 27
April 3, 10, 23*, 24
U18 Boys
February 20, 27
March 6, 13, 27
April 3, 10, 23*, 24
There will be no games played on March 19th and 20th or April 16th and 17th.
*April 23rd is a Saturday and not usually a day U16 and U18 play, these divisions started 2 weeks after the younger divisions, playing on the last Saturday and Sunday will ensure they receive the same number of weeks.
Play-offs
We will not hold play-offs in our traditional format, we do not want a COVID exposure or case within a team to knock them out of three weekends of play. The last day of games will be scheduled as follows 1v2, 3v4, 5v6, etc, etc. This option gives all teams a better chance at playing more games and should ensure their last game of the season ends with a competitive matchup.
- U10 will play regular games as they usually would have.
- U12 will play these seeded games on April 9th
- U14 will play these seeded games on April 10th
- U16/18 will play these seeded games on April 23rd. It is not possible to turn around the schedule on the 24th as games on the 23rd may affect them.
Spectators
As most of you would have received yesterday from HRM, all rentals at HRCE facilities will be limited to 60 people total, this includes all players, coaches, scorekeepers and officials. I have attached this document from HRM to this e-mail.
The MBA in working with the guidelines set out by HRCE will allow spectators as follows:
- Each team will be permitted to have a maximum of 25 people in the gym, this includes players, coaches AND SPECTATORS.
- Each team is required to keep a list their 25 people (players, coaches and spectators) in attendance for each game and produce it should it be requested.
- E.g. a team has 12 players and 3 coaches, they are permitted to have 10 spectators.
- E.g. a team has 15 players and 4 coaches, they are permitted to have 6 spectators
- This will be monitored each week, and should it become an issue or abused/ignored the ability to have spectators will be removed.
- Spectators must remain masked at all times and remain socially distant from each other as per the guidelines from the province.
- These rules will apply to all MBA league games.
- There may be facilities which have further restrictions or spectators not permitted, I am still in the middle of confirming each facilities guidelines and will keep the "spectator guideline" webpage updated (click here).
The rules around proof of vaccination still apply. Similar to before the break, each team MUST check proof of vaccination for all spectators in the gym for their team. Games will not begin until the name and phone number for the person checking this information has been recorded on the scoresheet and both coaches publically address their fans reminding them that masks must be worn at all times (if both coaches agree, one coach can do it for both teams).
As long as these guidelines are followed we will review as further restrictions are listed and look forward to welcoming anyone who wants to watch a game to do so. Until such restrictions are lifted this provides the best possibility to have a limited number of spectators and still be able to play games within the current restrictions.
Partners
