Cleve In The Eve: What PYHA is trying to do amid COVID-19 to get games played

PEORIA — The Peoria Youth Hockey Association is on a collision course with COVID-19 and state guidelines that will prevent kids from playing hockey this fall.

Hockey has been placed in the "high risk" category under the state's COVID regulations because it is a contact sport. Illinois will not allow games this fall.

"We can have non-contact practices, and we're planning to start as scheduled," PYHA president Andy Babcock said. "But no games are permitted. Normally, we'd open our travel season (22-45 games) in September, and our house leagues (18 games) in October. Now it looks like sometime in December is our best bet."

Owens Center, says Babcock, will remain open for those non-contact practices. If the state knocks Peoria back into Phase 3, however, Owens Center will close down.

Hockey is expensive for kids, and game experience is critical to player development. Peoria Rivermen head coach Jean-Guy Trudel -- whose SPHL season is delayed until at least mid-December -- might jump into the youth hockey program to conduct instructional camps for the kids.

In the meantime, PYHA is exploring an out-of-the-box idea to get travel-level players games. The Amateur Hockey Association of Illinois -- the governing body that oversees youth hockey in the state -- will not issue permits to its travel teams to play games.

So Babcock is exploring the idea of registering PYHA as an entity in a less-restrictive state -- Missouri, perhaps -- so that Peoria's travel teams can play games outside Illinois.

"We are looking at that to see if we can get around the permit issue," Babcock said. "Maybe registering with another state is the answer. But we have to examine the rules to see if it's permissible. We want our kids to be safe, and everyone to be comfortable with what we do, of course. We're going to have a meeting this week to discuss it."

PYHA is part of an online petition seeking to convince Gov. JB Pritzker to change hockey's categorization from high-risk to medium risk. Under the latter, games could be played.

That petition is at https://www.change.org/p/j-b-pritzker-reduce-the-risk-level-of-youth-hockey-in-illinois.

As of Monday afternoon 12,204 people had signed the petition, which has a goal of reaching 15,000 signatures.

Babcock distributed a survey to PYHA parents about a week ago asking if they intended to have their kids participate in the upcoming season.

PYHA has about 400-450 kids in its house leagues, and 120 kids on travel teams.

"We've gotten about 20 percent of those back, so we're hoping for more responses," Babcock said. "We are concerned, though, about the impact COVID regulations are having on our house leagues."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. Reach him at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @icetimecleve.