We’re opening up in Alberta and it’s a wonderful thing for so many of us who are eager to get back to competitions and our sport. As we move into relaxed restrictions, a few things to keep in mind:
- Comfort levels differ across our province. Phased openings in meets, facilities, and municipalities is to be expected.
- Upcoming meets will not look ‘normal’ necessarily. Meet directors, facilities, municipalities, and all involved need to be taken into account. Rest assured that we ALL are working tirelessly to make sure things work well, safety is paramount, and everyone involved is taken into account to the best of our respective abilities.
- Facilities may have different restrictions than AHS and that is their right.
We’re moving into Stage 2 of the Summer Reopening Plan starting today, June 10.
What we know for our sport:
- Albertans of all ages are permitted to do any type of physical activity, performance and recreation indoors and outdoors:
- People are permitted to do solo and group activities, with or without a trainer, including training, rehearsal and practices, events, games, scrimmages, competitions, gameplay, and league play.
- All Albertans (regardless of age and location in the province) are allowed to participate in indoor and outdoor sports, whether solo or in groups:
- Individuals or groups can take part in sports training, practices, events, games, scrimmages, competitions, gameplay, and league play.
- Physical distancing is not required during game play or sports practice, but is required outside of play/practice.
- Due to vaccine eligibility, activities with children 0-11 years of age are strongly recommended to cohort play in groups of no more than 50 children (including all teams who play games with each other). Staff and coaches are not included in the count.
- Children are recommended to participate in only one cohort at a time, and to not cross cohorts. This is particularly important if sports play is indoors.
- If a child changes cohorts, they should wait for one week (7 days) between interactions to minimize the risk of disease transmission.
- Physical activities can occur in any indoor or outdoor facility.
- Youth and varsity group sports/sports activities should be overseen by an adult leader, coach, or trainer.
- Outdoors, people participating in physical activities are not required to mask.
- Indoors, masking is required for sports that are primarily low-intensity physical activities (e.g. bowling).
- Masking is not required for individuals doing low-intensity aquatic activities in swimming pools, whirlpools or hot tubs.
- Indoors, masking is not required for high-intensity physical activity during sports play/practice.
- Masking is required in all other areas of the facility (e.g., change rooms, washrooms, entries and exits, etc.) including at all time immediately before and after activity.
- Spectators at upcoming meets will likely be very restricted or not possible as facilities are allowed only 1/3 seated capacity. Depending on the meet size, to be fair, spectators may be disallowed. This is up to the meet director and facility.
We encourage you to continue to be patient and abide the protocols of our meet directors and facilities. Opening up in full will take time and is just around the corner. So, let’s all dig deep and get through this as the amazing community we are – supporting and encouraging each other along the way.
