2020 Season Update (5/2/20)

To all IHAAZ players, coaches and families, 

On behalf of the entire IHAAZ board, we would like to thank you for your understanding and patience as we have continued to survey the situation and awaited guidance and instructions from state and local authorities before making further season announcements.

On April 30th, Governor Doug Ducey officially extended Arizona’s “stay at home” order through mid May. With these recent announcements, IHAAZ feels it's unfortunately time to officially cancel the two May State Finals weekends, originally scheduled for May 8-10th and May 16-17th. Rest assured the cancelation of these dates would hopefully not mean the end of the 2020 IHAAZ season.

The IHAAZ Board is currently looking at alternative programing that would include two additional Summer events: a qualifying tournament open to all IHAAZ teams, as well as new teams that might wish to participate,  and a State Finals tournament for teams that participated in the qualifying event.

IHAAZ will continue to closely monitor and work with state and local authorities to determine when we can start to look at firm dates and locations for these 2 events and provide further information. Until that time, IHAAZ feels it would be premature and counterproductive to set possible dates or speculate on when dates “could be” until we have a better indicator on where things are headed.

One thing we can say is that whenever these events do happen, they (like most other things in our future) will look a bit different than what are all used to. AAU has just begun setting guidelines for other youth sports events they are planning, and we will be taking cues from their examples. We placed many of these guidelines into practice during our March Tucson festivals such as:

• Disinfection and sanitizing of common areas, locker rooms, benches, etc.
• Shorter days/blocks for teams, less interaction with other teams.
• No handshakes post game.
• Availability of hand washing and hand sanitizer.

In addition to those, we would take guidance from these other AAU changes:

• No spectators at events (limited chaperones for players, but not spectators).
• We will be working to provide a live stream of the games so families, friends, and other teams in the event can watch remotely.
• Temperature checks for all entering and leaving the facility (players, spectators, officials, event and rink staff, etc).
• Social distancing measures at all points possible.

Please keep in mind that many elements are fluid, and we expect, as we get closer to our potential summer events, that more information and guidelines will be provided and policies implemented.

In closing, we want to reiterate our appreciation for your understanding thus far. We want all our players, from the new 8u’s to the Midget division players who were in their finals season to know we are dedicated to providing a meaningful completion to our IHAAZ season--and a chance for all our IHAAZ kiddos who are chomping at the bit, to lace their skates up and play again.

If you have any questions in the meantime we ask that you submit them through the "contact us" on the IHAAZ website (see link below).

https://www.ihaaz.com/contact


Sincerely,


The 2020 IHAAZ Board