UVM’s hockey and basketball seasons are in full swing, with players traveling to and from out-of-state games several times a month — with no quarantining.
Specialized Covid guidelines exempt student athletes from the state’s quarantine rules.
Four university teams are competing: men’s and women’s basketball, and men’s and women’s hockey. The players are tested three times a week and so are the players on competing teams. Under current rules, student athletes don’t need to quarantine for seven to 14 days, according to Jeff Schulman, UVM’s athletic director.
“We also have very intentional travel planning and strict game-management procedures, all of which creates a little mini-bubble around student-athletes, coaches and essential team personnel that’s designed to protect them and the broader campus community,” Schulman said.
The plan was developed by a UVM task force that worked with the state to develop a way for athletes to travel and compete safely during the pandemic. The NCAA, and the America East and Hockey East conferences in which UVM competes also have guidelines that have been incorporated into UVM’s plan.
Three of UVM’s teams played competitors in the Northeast over the past three weeks, each one traveling twice and hosting twice.
The women’s basketball team did not compete. The team had a home game scheduled for Saturday against Binghamton University in New York state, but the match was postponed after a positive Covid-19 test for a player on the University of Maryland, Baltimore County team — which UVM played earlier this month.
“The Vermont women’s basketball program does not have any positive cases at this time and is not on a teamwide pause, but does have student-athletes in quarantine due to contact tracing who would not have been eligible to participate last weekend,” UVM athletics spokesman Nich Hall said in a statement.
There are 450 student athletes at UVM. So far, “fewer than 10” student-athletes have tested positive for the virus, Schulman said. That number includes cases that are inconclusive and others that were later determined to be false positives.
As for masks, the hockey teams wear masks during competitive play — though not all the teams they compete against do the same. When teams play in Vermont, masks are required, but when UVM plays out of state, only three other schools in the conference will be wearing masks.
In basketball, UVM’s players do not wear masks at all during competition — though they are expected to wear them at all other times while at a game.
“It’s just a little bit more challenging,” Schulman said. “There’s a specialized mask design for a hockey helmet that’s much easier to work with than a basketball player that’s on the court trying to constantly adjust and manage a mask that’s falling down.”
He said the school evaluates each sport case by case, and requires masks whenever it is “reasonable” — though he noted that the majority of sports returning to play in the spring will compete outdoors, significantly lowering risks. He said swimming is an example of another sport where masks would likely not be reasonable to require.
Pause at Castleton
Other Vermont colleges, including Castleton and Northern Vermont universities, have also competed in recent weeks, though others, such as St. Michael’s College, opted to cancel their winter seasons. Norwich hasn’t competed against other teams since the pandemic began in March.
Castleton men’s basketball is now on pause after a member of the team tested positive, and is set to resume play on Jan. 23.
In late summer, UVM decided to postpone all fall sports competition (soccer, field hockey, and cross-country) to allow all athletes to go through a resocialization process on campus, slowly introducing athletes in bigger and bigger groups to one another until they could practice with their whole teams.
Now those sports will compete along with regularly scheduled spring sports during the second semester.
Players on the four competitive teams stayed on campus during the holiday break.
The original plan was to start basketball and hockey in mid-November, but when the time came, officials decided to delay that start date by a month “out of an abundance of caution,” Schulman said, because of quickly rising case numbers.
By mid-December, despite case numbers that were even higher than a month before, the teams started competing.
“The goal was partly to have the vast majority of our students to have left campus, creating a safer environment on campus for our student-athletes, but it was also to allow things to stabilize in Vermont,” Schulman said. “And that doesn’t mean numbers to go back down to where they were in fall or summer, it’s just to make sure we had protocols in place to operate programs safely.”
If the teams make it to postseason play, basketball teams will compete in a “bubble” — with men in Indianapolis, and women in San Antonio. Hockey’s tournament style is yet to be determined.
“We’re very realistic with where our collegiate athletics fits into the much more serious health concerns facing our state and our country,” Schulman said. “If we, or the health department, thought we couldn’t operate safely or that we were in any way putting Vermonters at risk, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
Correction: A previous version of the story incorrectly stated that Norwich teams had competed this season.