The San Jose State men’s club ice hockey team released a statement on July 20 announcing that their season would be postponed until the Spring semester. But the decision, which was made to ensure a “sense of safety for the players,” didn’t come without mixed feelings from the team.
“It’s an unfortunate thing, but at the end of the day I’m healthy,” Stephen Howe, team president and senior communications major, said over the phone.
Howe, who is also the team captain, said his teammates are “eager to come back” as they wait to hear the news of a possible spring season.
Although players are disappointed about not being able to play, the team has been able to stay physically active during Fall semester.
“From all of our calls, everything has been pretty positive. As far as I know, everyone’s been healthy and safe,” head coach Mike Janda said over a Zoom call.
The decision to postpone the season was made by Winston Adams, the club sport coordinator and general manager of the ice hockey club, who decided to follow a resolution by the PAC-8 Conference which postponed the season.
Before settling on the decision to postpone the season for an entire semester, the team considered doing postponement in one-month increments.
“We’re not in a situation where anything is guaranteed. There’s a lot of uncertainty still and we’re gonna do our best to follow or to come up with a plan that starts with the state’s and the counties’ guidelines,” Adams said over the phone.
Struggling to house the team was one of many reasons why the season’s postponement
was necessary.
“As a club sport we cannot require some kids to live somewhere and we had to accommodate what our team is gonna do and most of them are living off-campus,” Janda said. “We wanted to make sure everyone was there when we started.”
Consequently, games will be spaced out during the Spring semester, making their season longer with fewer games to play.
The hockey team currently has games planned for early January, but those dates are reliant on the reduction of coronavirus cases.
“I think if we get past January and we’re not playing games, we’re gonna have to seriously look at if there is even gonna be a season,” Janda said over the phone. “Which no one even really wants to think about, so we’ll just hope that we’re gonna play in January and we’ll go
from there.”
However, if the team cannot start by the beginning of the Spring semester, it’s unlikely that they will be able to play until Fall 2021.
Similar to many fall sports, club hockey is planning to keep making progress for the team.
Hockey tryouts are still being held and up to 16 rookie players will have a chance to join the team after a one-on-one Zoom call with Janda.
“We should have a full roster, it might even be the biggest roster the teams had in quite a few years, so we’re excited about that,”Janda said.
New members to the team are incoming freshmen, transfer students and even some graduate students who were able to come back to play.
In the meantime, the current players on the team meet on a biweekly basis through 15- to 30-minute Zoom meetings. These calls consist of preparing for the possible spring season, checking in with all the players and introducing new members to the team.
“I think one of the most important things right now is to connect with the guys and make sure that they know there is still a team here and there are still guys out there that care about them,” Janda said.
During these meetings, the team also discusses the work they’ve done on the Volt app. Volt has been used for San Jose State’s sports teams for the past three years and is where workouts are uploaded for the players to complete.
The players have the ability to choose when to do their workouts and have to complete a certain amount every week with start and end dates set by the coaches.
“Hopefully we see the usage of that go up, because if there is any time to need it it’s right now because people from their own homes can have access to their own workouts,” Adams said.
Although the team’s safety and preparation for the possible spring season are important factors to the coaches and captains, they also focus on keeping the team united.
“We’re gonna be working hard to keep the team atmosphere even if we can’t be in the same room together,” Adams said. “That’s what we’re gonna try to accomplish is just that, still acting as a team even though we’re not able to do it in the traditional sense.”
