Dylan Garand of the Blazers makes a save last season (Image Credit: Allen Douglas / Kamloops Blazers)
COVID-19 RESTRICTIONS

Blazers looking for clarification on sport restrictions as team prepares for training camp after Christmas

Dec 8, 2020 | 4:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — Many of the local WHLers have been skating alongside the pros for the last four months, just awaiting the start of some kind of hockey season.

However, with the provincial health authority banning indoor adult sports for people over the age of 19, there are questions about where veteran junior players fit into the new restrictions.

“Everywhere in junior hockey, it impacts the 19 and 20 year olds right now,” said Blazers GM Matt Bardsley. “So we’re trying to get a little more clarification since it is a team sport to see if there’s going to be any movement.”

The restriction put Blazers training camp, scheduled to start Dec. 27, is limbo with no 19 or 20-year-old players allowed on the ice. The organization, though, is preparing as if camp is going ahead.

“It’s kind of hard to make the plans. We’ll still make our plans going forward, assuming that at some point we’ll be able to have the 19 and 20 year olds on the ice. There’s still a little bit of time before the guys would come in anyways, so we don’t need anything in plan today. We’ll be talking with the league and give any input we can get from the health authorities.”

The season is still schedule to start Jan. 8 — the same day Dr. Bonnie Henry will announce whether the COVID-19 restrictions are extended or loosened. Bardsley says it’s hard on the 19 and 20-year-old players that are caught in the middle of the new rules.

“They’ve worked so hard, not even so much this year but their whole lives to get to this point, especially for the 19 and 20 year olds that are trying to earn a pro contract,” he said. “They’re trying to do the best they can, and for them to be restricted on the ice, I think we’re just looking for a little more clarification.”

So with it being exactly a month out before the WHL season, what are the Blazers going to do amid all the uncertainty?

“Our plan is to move forward with that date [Jan. 8], but obviously with these new restrictions, and again these restrictions apply to B.C., so it could change the B.C. Division a little bit. Until we are told it’s going to be different, our plan is still to start on the 8th.”

CFJC Today reached out to the Western Hockey League, but it isn’t commenting on how the recent restrictions are affecting the league’s plan to go ahead with the 2020-21 season.