I don’t know yet what my decision will be in 3 weeks when our league resumes but anyone playing hockey right now ANYWHERE needs to accept that contracting COVID is a possibility.
I do not know yet either.
Our rinks haven't made any announcements about returning yet, but I have thought about what it would mean, the risks, the unknown levels of exposure, and what am I risking bringing home to my wife and kids and other family and co-workers for this. That will create a ton of anxiety, each and every game night.
I play on two teams. For the team I skate on as a forward, I actually feel a bit more in control and perhaps willing to take the risk. Even though I probably end up nearer to people and breathing the air more closely, I feel like I have greater control over where I skate/sit, etc. It's probably a false sense of security that is not at all supported by science, but still. I can at least pick and choose which games I attend, particularly as the second and third waves of the virus hit, or if there was a recent outbreak among my office or family. I have far more freedom to decide whether I feel like going to a particular game or not.
But for the team I am a goaltender on, I have a lot less choice. I can't just choose on a night-by-night basis whether I want to go to a game or not. My entire team--and frankly, BOTH teams--depend on me being there. The league depends on 2 goalies at every game.
If 20% of the skaters bail on a night's slate of games you just roll with 8 skaters instead of 10. If 20% of the goalies opt out, 2 out of every 5 games will have to be forfeit, and you don't have a functional league. That is a LOT more pressure.
It's hard enough under the best of circumstances to wrangle a backup goalie on a couple days' notice. It's going to be even harder now under these ever-changing public safety conditions. If I skip a game out of safety concerns, or because I have a cold, I'm just asking someone else to assume my safety risk.....or vice versa, as I'm sure there will be a lot of others who bail. Maybe I'm willing to play goalie once a week. Will I be pressured into going to 2-3 times a week? Exposing my family to this for each instance to cover for other goalies who back out for their safety concerns?
My wife has always supported my rec league habit and had no problems with me filling in when someone called and asked me to sub on short notice. This is going to be so much different. Every game I go to in the middle of a pandemic is going to present a greater health risk to the entire family, in a way that my past seasons never did. I don't generally need her permission to agree to be a sub goalie. I might need her permission now. And if I say no to a team to protect my family, the game might have to be forfeit.
My team captain already inquired about my willingness to return. I didn't think too much about it at first, agreeing to play whenever the time comes that the league re-opens (probably not for a couple months). But our seasons are 22 games long, and the team relies upon goalies to be there. I am effectively agreeing to commit to showing up to games 6 months from now, in December....with no idea what this pandemic will look like even just a week or two from now. But if I say no, if I take any sort of cautious approach to my status, then the team will need to replace me, and I may not get my spot back the following season or two, once this is over.
It's complicated
