What a crazy year! That is really all that needs to be said at this point. I want to start by saying that SJU Hockey has not had a single positive covid test this year and the guys are doing everything they can control to be on the ice and playing hockey. With that said, the season has not been perfect and there has been a lot going on since I last wrote my last blog. Just to keep it a little shorter I will write a timeline to show what has been happening.
January 11th – Season starts with practices in pods of 10 and testing 3 times per week
January 13th – Received a positive covid test that shut down 11 guys
January 16th – Determined the test was a false positive
January 18th – Returned to practice in pods
January 25th – Move to full team practices
January 30th – Lost game at Augsburg 6-0.
February 3rd – Won game at Scholastica 5-2
February 5th – Won game at Bethel 4-2
February 7th – Won MIAC Conference game vs. Bethel 8-2
February 8th – Every team in the MIAC shut down due to COVID except SJU
February 10th – Schedule another game against Scholastica because no MIAC teams to play. Loss 3-1
February 11-24 – Only practices because no team to play games against
February 25th – Won MIAC conference game against Augsburg 4-2
February 26th – Found out a player on Augsburg tested positive and we got shut down for 14 days
February 27 through March 11 – Held practices with 9 guys that were not on quarantine
March 12th – First team practice in more than two weeks!
Still to come…
March 16th – Home game vs. St. Thomas 7pm
March 18th – Home game vs. Saint Mary’s 7pm
March 19th – Away game at Hamline 7pm
March 20th – End of season
As you can see, we have been through a lot this season. With that said, there are some teams that have had is worse than us if you can believe that. There are 3 teams that had to cancel their seasons, some teams that have played less than 5 games, and a couple teams that have done almost a month in quarantine. It is hard to complain knowing that we have been able to play some games and our guys have been healthy.
This upcoming week we are cramming in 3 games and it will be interesting to see how the guys respond to being off the ice for the past 14 days and then playing 3 games in one week. The 8 seniors on this team deserve the chance to finish the season on their terms so I look forward to giving them that this week.
Keep an eye out for a blog after next week and all we can do is pray we get all the games in.
Thanks for following Johnnie Hockey and Go Johnnies!
Doug Schueller
