Lifelongbender

He was appointed by Donald Trump. But that doesn't mean he is wrong. @Quinlan2020, I do not doubt your sincerity with respect to COVID-related restrictions. But as @aaaahockeysaid just above me, it's all political. The issues raised by the decision made by this judge are interesting because they relate not to the science of the issue, necessarily, but to the limits on executive power encoded in the Constitutions of both our Commonwealth and the nation. Ignoring these limits is inherently political, too. The biggest issue in politics in the US is our inherent inability to have rational conversations because we can't even talk about the actual issues.

It would be considered politics as usual.

This is exactly correct.

I don’t have any reason to think it will change other than their refusal to relax the rules. And the way they’ve behaved in the past when their recommendations were not followed. I hope you’re right. I really do. Me, I think masks are stupid but I wear mine and follow the stupid pointless rules because the consequences might be dire indeed.

Masks were "recommended" at the beginning, until they realized that nobody was wearing them. They went and made them mandatory. I think that the Governor is likely to double down on the limits rather than remove them, unless the legislature is successful in removing that option. Seems to me that there is a very good chance that those rinks that are not following the guidelines will cause a total shutdown of hockey for that reason. i hope very much that I am wrong here.

I just can't help but read that bill and note that it refers again and again to seating - seating capacity, may resume interior seating, etc. What does that have to do with ice hockey? Until this is addressed by something that amends or at least refers to the sports section of the diktat, I am just not going to be happy.

I signed it, too, but do we really want 100 comments here saying that people signed it? This board is already overwhelmed with random comments. I, for one, don't want to wade through those. Just sign it and don't brag about it here.

I agree on HB2787. I'm not sure if this HB2832 helps or not, but I'm all for passing it.

Here is the text of HB2832: https://legiscan.com/PA/text/HB2832/2019 I am not an attorney or a legislator, but HB2832 doesn't specifically mention sporting venues. In particular, the bill refers only to usage of inside seating in such venues. I guess I think that ice rinks could be interpreted to fall under the definitions in the bill, but would this bill override the specific Sports section of Wolf's diktat? I don't know that I think that HB2832 is any more applicable to amateur or club hockey than the bill allowing schools to determine if sports will happen. I have been wrong before, though. Honestly I cannot help but feel that they need to introduce a bill that specifically addresses the unique nature of ice rinks, especially with respect to hockey operations. We've been going on too long already with some rinks claiming that, despite the existence of a specific sports rule, they interpret the rules in some way or another that contravenes the sports section. It would be nice if one of these bills just said "A single sheet of ice may have up to 60 on ice/bench participants, with up to 60 spectators in the standard seating of the arena, provided they comply with CDC recommendations..." Where we are now, with rinks interpreting the rules to their advantage in obviously erroneous ways, is just going to get us totally shut down. All this despite the evident lack of scientific or logical order to the requirements. And the lack of necessity of the requirements at all.

That's been tried before - or at least suggested before - with other trolls and found to be a failure.

And unsurprising.

It has nothing to do with ice hockey. My local representative told me that they are writing a corresponding bill to specifically cover amateur and club sports, and that they are going to ensure that it would cover both amateur and club ice hockey. It's a great first step, true, but it doesn't fix our problem.

Didn't DVHL meet with Wolf and get totally rebuffed? I think that PAHL and DVHL are intentionally coordinating. Though it seems to me that multiple pressure points are more appropriate.

Yeah, I was just kidding.

How sure are we that @Quinlan2020 isn't The King? That last sentence is sure reminiscent of the absolute most annoying thing about The King.

Well, I do have to admit I miss a nice beer with friends every once in a while. But I have to say that he could have written "I can't even serve food and drinks to customers to make my livelihood" there if he owned said night club or comedy club, couldn't he? We are surely being awfully cavalier about the hardships of many small business owners. It's well and good to say that every death counts, no matter their age, but the loss of every small business is also catastrophic for somebody. There may not be a moral equivalent there in your eyes, but that matters, too.

That's not to mention the essentially threatening stance that Mid Am took about playing in non-sanctioned tournaments. Sigh.

You posted this while I was typing, or I wouldn't have wasted my time posting, because this message is well worded and reasonable.

Here's a modest proposal: Since nobody really knows what would or would not have happened if we didn't implement the measures that have been implemented, and given that even if absolute proof of one outcome or another were available it wouldn't change the mind of anyone actively debating this here, why don't we stop calling each other names and wasting valuable time and effort and drop the argument? Because nothing we say here is going to change what the government does, nor will anything change minds on either side. You should all understand that the truth of the situation is probably somewhere in the middle of the two positions taken here most often. This is totally unproductive and I thought that with the departure of the King it was possible that we might stop calling each other offensive names so often. Maybe we can try to move forward. Maybe even actually talk about hockey!

Outdoor, right?

I don't want to get dragged into the silly and non-productive name calling spats that stand in for discussion here recently, but I don't believe that your positions represent the majority of US citizens. I don't know what the majority thinks - I only know what the folks I personally know think - but by that metric you are a giant outlier to the negative. It would be interesting to know what the US citizens think, at large, were it even possible to find out in an unbiased manner.

Just what this discussion board needed! Nice job, @Paul Baxter!

Or else he's a guy thinking about coaching and he smells like weed himself from time to time.

I got an email from a parent with Peter's Township's plan in it yesterday which indicates that they're doing 4v4 for JV too. I believe that only Varsity is called off until January.

If my organization has a random drug testing program, I don't know about it, and have never signed anything agreeing to it.