With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, the Arizona Interscholastic Association had already decided to move the start of the winter sports season back once before. Another delay has subsequently been announced.
Citing a decrease in available ICU [Intensive Care Unit] beds in Arizona, the AIA announced that the start of the winter season has been moved to Monday, Jan. 18. This is a move of nearly two weeks from the previous intended start date of Tuesday, Jan. 5, which itself was a delay.
“These measures will allow us to start the season, and I hope that as we see hospitalizations go down, some of the restrictions regarding spectators will be lifted,” AIA executive director David Hines said in a statement announcing the decision.
The spectator regulation is a change from what the AIA had ruled during the fall sports season. In the fall, the decision of whether to allow spectators was left up to the host schools and districts to decide, based on what their individual COVID-19 numbers showed. While some schools didn’t permit any spectators, others, like Sedona Red Rock Jr./Sr. High School, continued to allow at least a limited number of them.
For the winter, that will not happen. The current AIA regulations, which are mandatory, state that “no fans will be permitted until metrics are appropriate.”
It’s important to note that while the season is shortened, the AIA still hopes that it will take place. In the statement, Joe Paddock, AIA associate executive director, said that having a season remains a priority.
“Our focus continues to be on keeping students in school and on the playing field safely,” Paddock said. “We believe this decision will help us preserve the winter sports season.”
One of the reasons cited for the delay was to allow teams throughout the state to have two full weeks of practice after schools returned from winter break during the week of Jan. 4. While schools in Yavapai County have had metrics that allowed practices to continue, other schools in the more populated parts of the state have had their practices restricted.
In a non-pandemic world, winter sports would have begun in either late-November or early-December and would be restarting in early January, after winter break has come to an end. But as it did to the fall sports season, the pandemic is forcing delays and a different season than has long been the custom.
The regular season will last only six weeks, with the AIA announcing in the release that Friday, March 5, will be the last day of regular season action and the postseason will follow.
In normal years, a schedule would feature somewhere in the area of 25 to 30 games, depending on how far a team advanced in the postseason and how many tournaments it played in. With tournaments not allowed this year and with the season being delayed, fewer games will be played. That said, the schedule that is played will be more rigorous. A typical schedule in a normal year would call for two games a week, one on Tuesday and another on Friday. Weeks this season will feature three games, in an attempt to make the season as long as possible.
Moving the start date from Jan. 5 to Jan. 18 will also cause the spring sports season to be delayed. The beginning of official practices will be Monday, March 1, moved back two weeks from Monday, Feb. 15. The AIA’s statement said that “conferences will have the opportunity to modify the length of the Spring season.”
Also of note, media members were permitted at SRRHS games during the fall. While the rules on spectators are presently different, media will continue to be allowed at games, as long as the individual schools allow it. Especially with fans not being permitted, the Sedona Red Rock News will continue to cover games as diligently as possible once the seasons get underway. While we know that we won’t be able to be at every game, we will make every effort to be at as many as possible to keep our readers informed about events that they might otherwise watch in person.
