Failing to properly prepare can be the downfall for many sports teams. However, how do you prepare for a season if you don’t even know it will happen?

 

Indiana University’s ACHA Division III Club Hockey team has had a history of success over previous seasons, advancing to Regionals the past 3 seasons and coming within one game of advancing to Nationals in 2019. The goal was for this season to be the year where the seniors who had been with the program for 3 years finally got the team to the National Championships.

 

The D3 club team held tryouts on October 13 and October 15 for the 2020-2021 season. In a normal season, the team would’ve held tryouts sometime in late August. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the team chose to push back tryout dates in an effort to try to wait and see if any announcement would be made by the ACHA about the upcoming season possibly being canceled.

By about halfway through September, Club President Austin Roell says, the players who were on the team last year took a vote and decided to go on with tryouts in October even without knowing when, or if, the season would possibly start. Once the team decided to hold tryouts in October, they also agreed to start holding once a week skates the rest of the semester in order to keep all the players on the ice in hopes of staying prepared for a spring season.

The ACHA announced as of last week that National Championships would no longer be held in one centralized location and instead would be hosted in small bubbles in each region in order to adhere in indoor facility restrictions that impact how many people can be in a hockey rink during the pandemic. However, there still has been no formal announcement on when, or if,  a season is expected in the spring semester.

As one could imagine, the uncertainty has been tough on the team, especially the seniors who were looking forward to getting much wanted redemption in Regionals in their final year at Indiana University. Senior George McMahon was especially disheartened as he spent the spring semester of his junior season studying abroad. He was hopeful that this season would be a memorable capstone to his career after missing regionals and a chance to help the team move on to Nationals.

 

Roell says that whether there would be a spring season or not, the team was going to continue skating and practicing together as a way of staying on the ice and enjoying some of their last possible hockey playing years before graduating from school and moving onto other pursuits.

Further updates on a possible ACHA season can be found on the league’s website.