Joe McGrath
General Manager
Last Saturday evening SharksIce hosted a Captain’s meeting regarding the impenitent approval to reopen by Alameda County Health Department.
TL;DR
- Opening October 18th
- No public skating
- No scrimmages
- Drills only under the supervision of a SharksIce Coach
- Everyone registers with the rink to enable contact tracing
- Cost not determined yet
- The Hellcats will try and run two sessions a week.
Meeting Notes
28 Captains in attendance out of a possible 73
The current plan is to have the rink reopen under the same rules as gyms:
- Operate at 10% of capacity
- 10% capacity of each enclosed area
- 10% of the ice capacity
They have calculated their max capacity based on public skate, and at 10% capacity, 35 people to be on the ice at once. They will operate much as they have with their kids’ camps, which began on June 22nd.
- Check-in outside the rink
- Don’t come if you’ve had exposure to someone with Covid or have traveled to high-risk areas (there was mention that the HVAC and dehumidifier reduces the risk in the facility)
- Your temperature will be taken upon each arrival
- They will clean the facility after each session
- No lockerrooms
- Arrive dressed with skates on (goalies are an exception)
- 35 to 36 players, on the ice under social distancing guidelines; 6 ft when your heart is at rest, 12 ft when you are exercising
- mask on at all times, including on the ice
- Four pods on the ice
This is the same model as San Jose. They mentioned the Santa Rosa might be reopening soon. They had criticism for Vacaville (which they didn’t mention by name), as a superspreader event would affect all ice facilities. They also noted that Nazareth Ice Oasis in Redwood City, Promenade Ice Chalet in Palos Verde, Ice Station Valencia in Santa Clarita, Desert Ice Castle in Cathedral City, and Ice-Plex in Escondido have all closed permanently due to financial issues stemming from COVID-19.
They sent a survey out in advance, asking if teams wanted to skate alone or with another team.
- 50% responded with another team
- 50% alone
Many Captains mentioned that they might only get 50% of their players out under these conditions. We recommended that SharksIce consider skill-based sessions open to individual players.
The cost was not provided, but they offer financial aid to anyone who has been economically affected by COVID-19.
They will begin with the teams who had regular season cut short and try to make them whole before opening to the broader player community.
They have a lot of ice available; kids are typically done at the rink at 8 PM.
They are targeting Sundays to be the day to start with adults.
Renting ice time
A household or social bubble might be able to rent ice, but if that approaches a team’s size, they will not allow it.
