Winter Sports Season Delayed Until Mid-January In Connecticut

CONNECTICUT — Winter scholastic sports in Connecticut have been pushed back to a start date in mid-January, following a Tuesday morning meeting of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) Board of Control.

The new start date for winter sports is now Jan. 19, 2021; prior to that date, collaboration between the CIAC, the Department of Public Health (DPH), the Connecticut State Medical Society Sports Medicine Committee and the office of Gov. Ned Lamont will continue in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

"CIAC Interscholastic athletics are an education-based experience that maintains in-person learning and the health and safety of our school communities as our top priority," CAS-CIAC Executive Director Glenn Lungarini wrote in a letter to all member schools' athletic directors. "Today’s action supports our member schools while they continue manage rising COVID numbers within their communities and experience widespread movements to distance learning."

In a Zoom conference call with media members, Lungarini said the mitigation strategies utilized during the fall season were quite effective, with the DPH stating just seven positive coronavirus cases resulted directly from sports participation, out of more than 30,000 games and practices.

He also said out-of-season conditioning may continue, pending approval of school district officials.

"We are disappointed that the season has been pushed back, but understand how difficult things are currently," Kolbe Cathedral boys basketball coach John Pfohl said. "We are very hopeful that with this delay, we will have a good chance of competing down the road so to speak. I think most people involved are doing their very best to have a winter season and as long as DPH does not get into political conversation, which has been going on all fall, we will have a great chance to give these student athletes the best experience we can during the trying times. I have seen all summer and fall AAU tourneys going on with no issues, so will assume once the numbers go down we will have the same success in CIAC competition.

Frank Genovese, longtime coach of the Enfield-East Granby-Stafford ice hockey co-op program, said, "It's disappointing, I feel bad for the players and teams, but most important is the health of our student-athletes. Things change daily, and no one can say this came out of left field. If we play starting in January, we'll play as many games as we can and salvage something."

"It does not surprise me that the CIAC has officially delayed winter sports, and hopefully winter sports can resume in January without being overly restricted by any alternative sports season," Somers girls basketball coach and athletic director Alan Walker said.

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