Dear EGMHA Members,
To say that this hockey season has been a challenge
would definitely be an understatement. The EGMHA Executive Team made a
commitment to membership in September to deliver as much hockey activity as
possible while adhering to the Government and Public Health guidelines. It was
our goal, to get our players out on the ice to maintain some sense of normalcy
to their otherwise limited schedules. We wanted to keep the kids engaged
in the hopes that things would return to normal eventually.
Regrettably, the Covid-19 events of the past year have caught up to us here in East Gwillimbury, we have been advised that due to the impending shut down, the town will be closing the arena facility for the one month closure period. As we had planned to only operate until April 16 anyway, we are now officially shut down for the 2020-2021 hockey season.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to the Mayor and Council of East Gwillimbury for enabling us to provide hockey programming at all during these turbulent times. I would also be remiss if I did not acknowledge the tireless efforts of the town staff running the facilities. The Managers, Coordinators and Arena staff, as a whole, aquitted themselves admirably. It was due to the facilities’ protocols and their adherence to the multiple safety and sanitation requirements, that made it possible for EG Hockey to happen at all. It was thanks to their efforts that we were able to keep our players as safe as possible.
Throughout the season, we have held several virtual Town Hall meetings, where we tried to communicate the situation at the time and what we expected going forward. I hope you found these helpful and informative. During those virtual meetings I tried to convey the enormous workload related to: health screening, scheduling, coordinating coaches and trainers. This was a monumental task undertaken by some extraordinary people throughout the Association. I would not be exaggerating to say that I was constantly in awe of the efforts put forward by those people and I personally thank them all for their herculean efforts.
I would like to single out a couple of individuals that deserve special mention, Jen Mackey, EGMHA Secretary and Cathy Kopsala, EGMHA Administrator/Ice scheduler/Registrar. Were it not for those two women, Hockey in EG would not have happened, thank you both for your dedication to EGMHA.
In closing, I would like to wish all of our members good health and good fortune for the remainder of the spring and summer. We are currently finalized the refund process for sessions we were not able to offer this season. We are anxiously awaiting the upcoming 2021-2022 hockey season, we expect to open registration in early June and hope to have all of our players back and playing games in the fall.
Best wishes and kind regards,
Rick McGlone
President
EGMHA