COVID stoppages, ice time concerning to Bay State hockey coaches

The growing number of hockey schools dealing with temporary COVID stoppages coupled with a lack of available ice time has many hockey coaches concerned about getting to the minimum number of games needed to qualify for the tournament.

At Thursday’s Tournament Management Committee meeting, Wellesley athletic director John Brown asked the TMC to consider extending the hockey cutoff date from Thursday, Feb. 24 to Sunday, Feb. 27 at 3 p.m. Brown said the extension would still allow the tournament to proceed as regularly scheduled.

“Basketball has control of its own venues, whereas hockey is struggling to get any ice time,” said Brown, whose motion was shot down by a 12-6 vote. “The Franklin rink is hosting all of the Hockomock League and the Tri-Valley League, so it’s harder to get in there. The extra three days would have helped to get that done.”

The meeting opened with MIAA associate executive director Sherry Bryant giving what amounted to a state of the union address regarding the initial statewide tournament. While Bryant admitted there were areas which can be improved, she lauded many aspects of the new format.

“It shows that the hard work is paying off,” Bryant said. “We have like-size schools competing for a championship, all schools have an equal pathway to the tournament, there is one (universal) seeding qualification and the formats are the same across the state.

“The power seedings gave us matchups which would have not been possible before. The attendance numbers were awesome, the power ratings generated interest throughout the season leading into the tournament. The Div. 1 field hockey final exceeded the total of both state finals in 2019.”

One of the laments of the fall season was the choice of venues. While football had the opportunity to play their eight championship games at Gillette Stadium, most of the other fall title contests were held at high school venues, rankling some coaches and fans. Bryant admitted the TMC might want to look at this down the road.

“It just seemed anti-climatic to be playing a state volleyball final at 10 a.m.,” said Old Rochester principal Michael Devoll, whose school played in the Div. 3 final at Bridgewater-Raynham at 11 a.m. “It’s one thing if we are playing at a college venue, but playing at that time at a high school venue — it just didn’t feel like the game had the same magnitude.”

St. Mary’s athletic director and girls basketball coach Jeff Newhall put forth a proposal in which the gym capacity in the Round of 8 be increased from 500 to 1,000. It was passed unanimously.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/33uB3aV