Pearl Lorentzen
Lakeside Leader
“We’re going to have brand new jerseys, and nowhere to wear them,” says long-time Kodiak Connie Schultz.
The Kodiaks are the women’s hockey team in Slave Lake. In a normal year, they compete in a league which includes teams in Alberta and British Columbia, but the competetive season is cancelled because of COVID-19.
“We can’t go inter-provincial,” Schultz says. “We’ll just have a really fun year.”
However, she adds, Kodiaks and some of the other teams have booked ice time and will be going ahead with practices and potentially a few tournaments.
“I think, because we’re having a fun year,” Schultz says, a number of older players have returned to play this year. These players found it hard to commit to travelling every weekend.
Schultz describes the COVID-19 restrictions as “quite the rigmarole for sure.” However, one of the other teams came up with a COVID-19 questionnaire app, which the whole league is using. This makes tracking responses much easier.
The Kodiak’s new jerseys were purchased with a donation from the Emes-Lukan Memorial Society. This Slave Lake group usually holds a fundraiser golf in the summer, but this fundraiser was one of the victims of COVID-19.
