Hello JAHA!

At long last, teams for the fall 2021 season have finally been posted! If you registered, you should have received an email inviting you to join your team. If you didn’t, please navigate to your tier and check the teams!!! This was my first year uploading teams, on top of having several new tier reps, on top of having close to a dozen last minute sign ups and drop outs. It’s highly likely that somewhere along the way at least one person’s name fell through the cracks. We’re going back and double checking our work but please check and reach out to us ASAP if you were not placed on a team, if you were placed on a team but did not get an email, or if you were not placed in the correct tier.

As you’ll probably notice, the schedule has not been uploaded yet. It has been finalized, and should be uploaded hopefully by the end of the day tomorrow.

Now that that’s out of the way, please see the following list of other important points you should be aware of:

1) We are in need of scorekeepers! If you are interested in getting paid to watch JAHA games, please see the attached flyer from the folks at JHO and reach out if you are interested.
2) If you are a player and have a sponsored jersey from the previous season, please do your best to get them to a tier rep (or myself) as soon as possible. If you are a sponsor and need a list of all players in 2020 that had your jerseys, please reach out to the JAHA email account (juneauadulthockey@gmail.com) and we will generate a list for you to aid in tracking those down
3) We have a whole host of new jerseys that were acquired for JAHA use! You will see them in use across several tiers this year. For those of you who have JAHA jerseys from the 2020 season, we aren’t interested in collecting them so feel free to do with them as you wish SO LONG AS THEY ARE NOT FROM A SPONSORED TEAM
4) Finally, to reiterate points from the last announcement post: locker rooms will be open, masks are required 100% of the time while inside the rink, maximum locker room capacity is 15 people, and showers will not be available.

I think that covers it, I’m looking forward to seeing you all back at the rink!

JAHA family-

​We are still slightly behind the minimum number of skaters we’d need to field a minimum of 3 teams in each tier. The minimum number of skaters we’d need to field 3 teams in each tier is 30 skaters and 3 goalies. Our registration numbers as of Tuesday August 31st are as follows:

Tier A – 13 (2 goalie)
Tier B – 27 (3 goalie)
Tier C – 27 (2 goalie)
Tier D – 13 (2 goalie)
Tier W – 24 (2 goalie)
Tier 40 – 22 (1 goalie)

Given that the board elected to go with a 10 game season instead of a 12 game season before we opened registration, we have elected to postpone the start of the season by an additional week in an attempt to get enough skaters registered to field 3 teams in each tier. This will be the last postponement.

If we do not receive more registrants, the Fall season WILL proceed with two tiers: a competitive tier combining Tier A and Tier B registrants, and a noncompetitive/fun tier combining Tier C and Tier D registrants. Tier 40 and Tier W registrants can choose to move to one of those tiers, or opt for a refund. In addition, if you’re registered and not willing to play in one of the proposed combined tiers, you can request a refund. IF we get enough additional registrants to field our minimum 3 teams in the tiers, we’ll progress as a normal season.

The new season start date will be September 26th Please note, the season will still end at the normal time and playoffs will happen as normal. This is just a delay in the season start date to allow more people the chance to sign up.

So, for those of you who haven’t registered yet, now is the time! For those of you who have friends in your tiers that are on the fence, this is your window to go convince them to sign up! For any questions, please reach out at juneauadulthockey@gmail.com

Locker Room Update –

The EOC has approved our request to use the locker rooms during the season. The same rules as last year are in effect, with the following rules added in regards to locker room usage:

​• The locker room key must be checked out to unlock the locker room, and returned by the last person to exit.
• Locker room max capacity is 15 people.
• Can enter locker room 15 minutes before game start, and must leave within 15 minutes of game close.
• Masks must be worn at all times.
• Shower rooms are to remain closed and unused.

Thanks and hope to see you on the ice!

Matthew Reece, Vice President

While there’s a lot of time between now and the scheduled start of the Winter 2021 season on January 10, 2021, we are moving forward with opening registration in the hopes that we will be able to bring adult hockey back in a safe and responsible way by then.

If all goes to planned, we will be able to offer a 10 game season of 5-on-5 hockey, played in a jamboree-style format. This means coed, mixed skill teams and no playoffs or championship.

All information related to registration for the Winter 2021 season is located on the “Register for JAHA” page in the navigation menu or at this address. Please read the entire page before registering:

http://www.juneauhockey.org/organizations/1728/pages/76468

Please contact us at info@juneauhockey.org if you have any issues with the new registration system, questions about our COVID-19 mitigation measures, or any other questions/concerns you may have before registering.

After much thought, discussion, and observation, the JAHA Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to cancel the Fall 2020 season. When the Board unanimously voted in favor of postponing the season to September 27th, that was made with the caveat that if the COVID-19 situation in Juneau got worse, we would not proceed with the delayed/shortened Fall season for a number of reasons, chiefly public health and logistical concerns. Given that Juneau was in Level 2 alert status at the time this discussion was held in August and is currently in Level 3, the situation is objectively worse and thus we followed through on the cancellation.

Refunds for those players who registered will begin being processed immediately. The refund will go back to the card we have on file for you.

Be aware that this simply means that JAHA itself will not be organizing hockey. As long as Treadwell Arena remains open, there are private rental hours available to the public that can be used for playing hockey at your discretion and in compliance with COVID-19 mitigation protocols in place at the rink. Please visit Treadwell Arena’s website for more information: https://juneau.org/parks-recreation/treadwell-arena

Finally, on a personal note, while I’m saddened by the public health situation in Juneau and hope we can pull out of it quickly, I’m also incredibly proud of all the work put in by your board of volunteers who gathered on short notice and took time out of their lives to thoughtfully and respectfully represent their positions throughout all of these challenging conversations. I hope you will join me in sending them positive vibes and gratitude for their efforts. In the coming months, we will be shifting our focus to the Winter 2021 season and communicating progress to that end as we look to what we hope is a more normal time for all of us.

On behalf of the board, I would also like to extend a huge thank you to you—our membership—as we navigate this hopefully once-in-our-lifetime territory. None of us started 2020 knowing what was in store and we are dealing with something new almost every day. JAHA will be back before you know it.

Stay healthy and we hope to see you on the ice as soon as safely possible,

Jason Soza
President
Juneau Adult Hockey Association

JAHA Players,

First and foremost, on behalf of the JAHA Board of Directors, we hope this message finds you and yours safe and in good health. These are trying times for all and it’s hard to imagine that this time last month we were still playing hockey and hanging out in the locker room with our teams. We are looking forward to a return to those days.

Over the short amount of time from postponing the Winter ‘20 season until now, so much has changed. The temporary postponement of JAHA became permanent when Treadwell Arena closed for the season and statewide “hunker down” mandates precluded any sort of traditional banquet. This is all for the good of our community and we will all cope just fine missing a few games and not seeing each other at the Red Dog this month. However, all this does create some logistical issues to handle and we’ve been working to get our pucks in a row to ensure you, our membership, is taken care of and that JAHA is ready to roll when the Fall ’20 season starts.

To that end, I wanted to let you know what has been discussed by the JAHA board and what you can expect and look for over the next few weeks:

• REFUNDS: As of March 14th, when the Winter ‘20 season was postponed, each team had 1-2 regular season games and 2 playoff games left, for a total of 3-4 games. The prorated refund amounts are $51.43-$68.57, respectively. To offer you flexibility, you will have THREE OPTIONS for how you’d like JAHA to handle your refund: 1) refund back to the card on file (this is the default if no response), 2) credit your account, or 3) leave the amount with JAHA to donate to a local charity to help with COVID-19 impacts to the community. We will be distributing a survey in the coming weeks that will include information on elections AND refunds. Please be on the lookout for this!

• ELECTIONS: JAHA Board of Director elections are typically held at our annual membership meeting, i.e. spring banquet. Since we cannot do that this year, we will be conducting this year’s elections electronically. There are several benefits to this, primarily higher participation! Board positions up for election this year are Vice President, Treasurer, Registrar, Member-at-Large B, and all Tier Representative positions. Think about what position(s) you might want to run for — you can check out a description of each position in JAHA’s bylaws — and keep an eye out for the refund survey mentioned above, this will be your opportunity to throw your name in the hat!

• JERSEYS: The plan for Fall ‘20 is to mirror the Winter ’20 teams as closely as possible—for example, if you were on Driscoll’s Dugout in Tier B this season and sign up for Tier B this coming Fall, you will be put back on Driscoll’s Dugout. This will allow you to simply keep your current jersey over the summer and minimize the effort needed to swap jerseys between players. Even though you’re hanging on to them, please launder any JAHA jersey(s) or sponsored jersey(s) in your possession! We realize not everyone can or will sign up for the Fall season and some of you may leave town for one reason or another. If this applies to you, please let us know at info@juneauhockey.org and we’ll work with you to see what makes sense to get the jerseys back to JAHA before the start of next season. (If you are in the US Coast Guard and will be transferring out of Juneau this year, please contact Christopher Coutu.)

• PRE-SEASON KICKOFF PARTY: To leave you with some good news, we are still planning to party JAHA-style! Rather than an end-of-year spring banquet, we will look to arrange something towards the end of August to kick off the Fall ’20 season right. Stay tuned.

Thank you all for being a part of JAHA and look for more information soon.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands ya filthy beauts.

— Commissioner Soza