It has been a long time since you heard from me and a lot has happened. All the players returned to campus on January 11th, and all of them had to return with a negative COVID test in hand. We then started our weekly testing on that Monday. To compete in MIAC play, we need to test 3 times per week. We are currently doing the tests on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
On Wednesday, January 13th, we received a positive test for one of our players that shut down 11 total players on our team. We lasted a whole 2 days! The following Friday we received the test results from the Wednesday test and that same player tested negative. We then had him take another PCR test from another site and that also came back negative. The positive test proved to be a false positive. We then found out we were not the only team in the MIAC dealing with a false positive test. I guess it is good that this is happening before we start the competitive season, but it is still frustrating as we lost 11 guys from practice for 5 days.
With all that, we started back as a full team on Monday, January 18th. Things are going well, and we are starting to get the team and players into game shape. We now have about a week to prepare for our first game on January 30th against Augsburg.
The MIAC recently released the competition guidelines for our 2021 season. We will have 7 regular-season MIAC games and will also be able to schedule 4 non-conference games. We have all the games scheduled and you can see that schedule through this LINK. Our 4 non-conference games are against Augsburg, Bethel, Concordia and St. Scholastica. We will play 7 conference games against the teams participating in the MIAC season. The only team not competing is St. Olaf.
All of our home games will be live-streamed through our Stretch Internet portal, which is linked throughout gojohnnies.com. We have a great rink to show our games and the quality is always one of the best in MIAC. You can use this LINK to get to our games. I believe all the teams will be streaming the games so I will be sure to share any links to the game through the SJU Hockey social media outlets. The away-game streaming links can also be found on our web page through this LINK.
Unfortunately, we are not able to have fans at our games this season, but at least we get to play games. I know there are going to be difficulties in the season, and I will be surprised if we get all our games in without any issues with COVID. I just hope we can provide the best experience possible for the student-athletes on this team and especially for our 8 seniors.
I look forward to giving my weekly updates and I hope that you can catch some of our games online.
Doug Schueller
