The Prince George Spruce Kings will have to wait a little longer to hit the ice.
Today (Monday), the BCHL announced it will schedule no games between now and midnight on Dec. 7 in light of the provincial restrictions put in place last week.
This pushes the regular season start date to December 8th to accommodate the new orders against team travel.
It also means that the remainder of the exhibition schedule has been cancelled.
“If the PHO extends their current restrictions beyond Dec. 7, we have the option of moving the start date to after the holidays, but it is our intention to begin play once the current order expires”, said BCHL Commissioner Chris Hebb.
“Our objective from the beginning, when we worked out our COVID-19 Safety Plan with the PHO, was to allow our players to have a season, but we want to make sure it is under the safest conditions possible.”
Spruce Kings General Manager Mike Hawes told MyPGNow.com it’s best to air on the side of caution at this point.
“The most important thing here is safety so, we want to make sure that our players and staff are safe and that everybody on all the teams in the league are safe. We are certainly going to listen to anything the PHO offers at this point.”
He added the delay comes another layer of uncertainty on the upcoming season.
“It’s going to all depend on the COVID numbers in the province and how successful these restrictions over the next week or two and it will be up to Dr. Bonnie Henry and the PHO if they want to extend the restriction or not.”
A revised regular-season schedule will be released in the coming weeks.