Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on the fall sports of Wisconsin athletics, but many club teams at the University of Wisconsin have also had to adjust their seasons to accommodate the UW’s protocol in 2020.
The UW women’s figure skating club, women’s club hockey team and men’s baseball club are just a few club teams that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For some of these teams, the pandemic has forced teams to come up with a return to play plan to ensure the University’s Recreation and Well-Being organization that it’s safe for the club teams to continue to play.
Despite having their season on hold due to Chancellor Rebecca Blank’s Sept. 8 mandate advising students to restrict their movements due to the spike in COVID-19 cases, the women’s figure skating team seems right on track to start back up their 2020 season. The team has come out with a well-thought-out plan awaiting approval from the University.
“In returning to play, RecWell has required that all club sports write out a return to play plan as well as a safety and sanitation plan that outlines how we would safely conduct practice,” Figure Skating Club President Bobbi Burgess said. “Our team has already completed it and we are still waiting on a response from the University. However, we are pretty sure that we’ll get approved just because it is an individual non-contact sport and hope to get on the ice by the middle of October.”
Though Burgess is hopeful the team’s plan will get approved, there will be an increase in safety precautions for the 2020 season.
Some of those safety precautions include wearing masks at all times and not having more than 10 people on the ice. Since the figure skating club includes close to 30 members, Burgess is exploring ways to get more ice time for practice.
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“So we hope to have two sessions of ice per week, but with the Dane County gathering limitations, we are only allowed to have 10 people on the ice at a time,” Burgess said. “So we are looking at other options to potentially get another sheet of ice to fit all of our club members on the ice at some point.”
In regards to competitions, the women’s figure skating club normally participates in one event during the fall and two during the spring. Due to concerns about COVID-19, the team has re-scheduled all tournaments to be played in the spring.
Another club team that has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is the club baseball team. In a normal season, the team holds their tryouts in the first two weeks of the school year. Based on the restrictions from the University, the team hasn’t been able to add new members.
“Usually the way a typical fall semester would go is about a week or two after classes start we host our fall tryouts and those will run until the end of September,” Team President Ryan Winters said. “By now we would’ve already had our roster filled out and we would’ve already played in a tournament in the Wisconsin Dells that would’ve taken place last week.”
Along with not being able to add new members, the National Club Baseball Association informed Winters and the team of their decision to move all club baseball games to the spring. With that rule in place, the team is forced to adjust to a restless spring season.
“Early in August, the NCBA decided to move all of our conference games that count toward making the playoffs to the spring semester, where normally half of the games would be in the fall and half would be in the spring,” Winters said. “So that decision has kind of pushed all of our important commitments to the spring.”
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Like the women’s figure skating team, the club baseball team was required by RecWell to submit both a return to play plan and a safety and sanitation plan.
Though the team is waiting for approval from the University, the plan includes an increase in safety measures which allows for baseball to be played in a controlled, safe environment.
“Things are going to be different this semester for their safety,” Winters said. “It’s going to be a lot of maintaining social distance, following the guidelines of limiting outdoor events to 25 people, wearing masks at all times and making sure all of the equipment is properly cleaned and sanitized.”
Though it appears the women’s figure skating team and men’s club baseball team will likely start their seasons upon approval from RecWell, the women’s club hockey team canceled their fall 2020 season completely.
With hockey being a contact sport, Club Presidents Hayley Hanson and Ellie Kimlinger found it difficult to play the sport while following RecWell’s guidelines.
“Based on RecWell’s guidelines of no contact, only having 10 people on the ice and wearing face masks, we decided to postpone the season until something changes to when we can start having contact practices with our whole team there,” Hanson said.
“For the spring we are hoping that we can play obviously, but if the guidelines don’t change, we probably won’t be able to play because you can’t play hockey six feet apart with no contact,” Kimlinger added. “So hopefully they [RecWell] ease up on the guidelines, but I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
