Hockey ACT staggers training return to combat field limitation

Capital League teams have been given the green light to resume training at Lyneham Hockey Centre from Monday, the first phase of Hockey ACT's return to play guidelines.

The organisation issued its framework on Friday afternoon, with each club required to record who trains and players to supply their own sanitiser.

Each pitch will have seperate entry and exit points, with teams only allowed to train in group of up to 10 people.

Hockey ACT usually has between 230-250 teams registered across its competitions and most of them train at Lyneham or Tuggeranong.

Chief executive Rob Sheekey said they'll use the initial phase to trail the new protocols, before allowing more teams to train in a few weeks.

"We only have five hockey fields in Canberra, so with that restriction we need to work back," Sheekey said.

"The Capital League teams were training prior to the shutdown and having practice matches, so they were further prolonged in their preparation. Because of that, it's a bit easier to bring those teams back together.

"As you start moving through the grades there'll be players in every team who don't return for various reasons, so it gives those lower grades longer to organise their teams and things like that."

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Hockey ACT is hoping to restart the winter season in July, with plans to stagger each competition's return across three weeks.

The Capital League would start first, proceeded by State League, then senior and junior grades to follow.

"In a perfect world they'll go week-after-week, but once we have those dates we can start working out who starts when," Sheekey said.

"The season is also going to run longer than it has previously, with our Capital League likely to finish in November.

"We suspect all competitions will run, at the very least, into late October."

Hockey ACT will introduce an eight-round mixed social competition to run alongside the season.

It will be run on weeknights for those who cannot commit to the full season in a post coronavirus world.

"We're aware not all of our members can afford to return to club hockey this year due to various circumstances, some have lost work and things are going to be tight financially," Sheekey said.

"We're offering a competition like that to give them the opportunity to participate.

"It will reduce training time for some clubs, but this year we're just asking people to enjoy the opportunity to play hockey."

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