BCHL COVID-19 Plan
The BCHL’s COVID-19 Plan, which was created by the league office and the Return-to-Play Task Force, in consultation with the provinces Safer Operations Work Group, was accepted by the Provincial Health Office (PHO) back in September.
The league’s COVID-19 plan covers a wide range of topics, including facility protocols, on-ice protocols and team travel.
The BCHL was also assigned a specific doctor from the PHO’s Safer Operations Working Group who has worked with the league to ensure all health and safety standards are being met and any future developments or standards are being appropriately addressed.
Government Funding
The league’s request for financial support from the provincial government is still standing. With the recent provincial election, the BCHL’s request was understandably pushed to the side, but the league will pick those conversations up again once the results of the election are in.
Schedule
An announcement on the schedule for the 2020-21 BCHL regular season is expected in the coming weeks. Each team will play 32 games within their regional cohorts. The season will start in early December and run through the end of March.
Wenatchee Wild
With the Canadian-U.S. border still closed, the Wenatchee Wild are currently not on the BCHL regular-season schedule. Their plan remains to continue training camp south of the border and play intra-squad exhibition games until they are able to travel north to play against BCHL competition.
If the border opens early in 2021, or before the regular season commences, the league has plans in place to add the Wild into the schedule to participate in the 2020-21 regular season and playoffs.
Alternative planning will continue to take place.