Good news for our Junior and BKL athletes! New guidance has been issued pertaining to youth sports and training groups. You can read the guidelines at the bottom of this post.
The net? It looks as if we will be able to resume in-person programming, with lots of safety restrictions, as early as Dec 26th.
MNC is planning to roll-out updated guidance, structures, and programming that meets the specified criteria of these guidelines. Our tentative program re-start date for Juniors and BKL is January 1st, 2021.
The new guidelines:
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9.1 Sports/Organized Sports Including Youth Leagues, Adult Leagues, Practices, Games, and Tournaments
Effective Saturday, December 26, 2020, organized youth leagues and school-based sports programs (serving individuals age 19 years and younger) may resume team-based activities strictly limited to:
- Individual skill-building exercises;
- Strength and conditioning sessions; and,
- No-contact drills.
Additional direction on school-sponsored winter sports programs, applicable to both public and independent schools, will be published by the Agency of Education.
In resuming limited team-based activities, organized youth leagues shall:
- Require all participants to complete a health check, including temperature screening, before arriving at team-based activity.
- Eliminate all physical contact and ensure physical distance of at least six feet is always maintained between individuals.
- Require masks / cloth face coverings to be worn at all times.
- Anyone with a documented medical or behavioral reason for not wearing a facial covering should not be required to wear one.
- Limit participation to 25 individuals (or create cohorts of 25 that do not mix with other cohorts) for outdoor sports.
- Limit participation to 25% of approved fire safety occupancy or one person per 200 square feet, not to exceed 25 individuals for indoor sports.
- Venues with multiple facilities (such as multi-rink locations, multi-court gyms) may have more than one unit of the maximum event size as long as those units are in distinct portions of the facility (a different gym, unique and distinct rinks) and the distinct gatherings have no interaction with one another.
- Prioritize outdoor activities whenever possible.
- Prohibit spectators; only “key personnel” – players, coaches and staff – are allowed to attend team-based activities.
- Guardians must wait in their vehicles and to avoid socializing with other guardians at practices.
- Prohibit congregating before, during, and after practice; promote an “arrive, play, and leave” mentality. Players and coaches should arrive for practices dressed to play to the maximum extent practicable and limit time spent in locker rooms. Any locker room use must adhere to physical distancing and masking requirements.
- Plan facility schedules in a manner that avoids contact between different user groups, including staggered starts and sufficient time between games to minimize contact between arriving and departing cohorts.
- Prohibit team-based social gatherings until all other COVID-19-specific restrictions regulating sports leagues are fully lifted.
- Discourage multi-household carpools to team-based activities.
- Prohibit spitting or expulsion of bodily fluids of any sort on the playing service (field, court, ice, etc.), or anywhere in or around the playing service or in the facility.
- Prohibit sharing of water bottles.
- Regularly and thoroughly clean and disinfect equipment.
Intra- or inter-squad scrimmages are currently prohibited, as is participation by any Vermont-based team in games, meets or competitions, both within and outside of Vermont. A limited exception is provided for outdoor competition for Vermont-based athletes in downhill skiing, snowboarding, and Nordic skiing at Vermont venues. Under this limited exception, the number of participants must not exceed 25 individuals, although a competition may involve multiple groupings of 25 throughout the day if the groups do not interact with one another.
In accordance with Addendum 8, all indoor and outdoor organized adult sports* remain suspended until further notice, including Vermont-based teams participating in interstate play.
*Professionally facilitated lessons and classes that provide individualized instruction to adults are not considered “organized sports” and may occur in accordance with Section 8.1 of the Work Safe Memo.
