'Someone has to do it': COVID-19 through the eyes of Hockey P.E.I.'s Connor Cameron

Connor Cameron grew up playing hockey in Mill River in westernP.E.I. He remembers the joy of a potential hockey gift under the tree and,if he waslucky,getting to test it out at the Christmas jamborees in local communities.

"For me to not have hockeyI can't really imagine what that would look like," he said. "It's obviously a huge part of my life."

Cameron is the executive director of Hockey P.E.I.,though he is fairly new to the task.

He took on the role in October during the continuing COVID-19 pandemic,and to say it's been an unusual entrance into the position would be a vast understatement.

"It certainly pushed myself out of my comfort zone," he said. "I'm a hockey guy who likes to be in the rink to see things with my own eyes."

'Tough to swallow'

Hockey on P.E.I. came to an abrupt halt in mid-March when the pandemic hit.

"I was sitting at my deskit was somewhere around lunchtime and there was a snap call," he said. "The call had all the heavy hitters from Hockey Canada."

I haven't actually seen a live hockey game in almost 10 months. I probably wasn't 10 months old the last time that happened. Connor Cameron

Cameron said that's when the news came that allHockey Canada-sanctioned activities were being shut down from British Columbia all the way to Prince Edward Island.

"I think we anticipated the shutdown, but the speed and the urgency of the shutdown certainly caught us off guard."

At that time, the U Sports Women's Hockey Championship was underway in Charlottetown. In fact, just one night earlier, UPEIhad scored a nail-biting goal with less than a minute left in the third period to tie the game and send the team to the semi-finals. Suddenly, the season was over.

"That was tough to swallow for sure."

Hard on players and families

Navigating what happens with one of the province's most popular sports during a global pandemic has been difficult, said Cameronbutit's not because high-performance players won't be able to catch up physically.

"In 2020, everyone's missing out on something, so there's a little bit of an even playing field there."

Cameron's concerns involve the mental health of players instead. "It's a big part of their social fabric. To take that away from them? It's tough."

He recognizes the impact of shutting down or limiting hockey also affects people not on the ice.

"On the other side, you have the parents and grandparents," he said.Take a look atany community across P.E.I, and you will have "grandmothers, grandfathers coming to every single game like it was an NHL game."

Altering hockey traditions

Over the past several months, Hockey P.E.I. has been forced to deal with some backlash against the strict COVID-19 restrictions. As someone who hasloved the sport his entire life, Cameron said he understands why he gets emotional calls from people frustrated with the situation.

"You're dealing with Islanders who are under stress, but these are good people, the same people that are in the rinks in a normal year."

And for a sport deeply rooted in tradition, Cameron also acknowledged that players having to put on hockey equipment in the parking lot was for lack of a better word "weird."

There have been some positives, though.

For starters,the pandemic has forced people to figure out ways of moving aspects of hockey learning online, he said.

As well, he said,COVID-19 has also shed light on "certain things that we probably should have been doing all along" when it comes to infection control andproper hygiene. There may never be any more sharing of water bottles, for example.

'Someone has to do it'

Looking back, Cameron saidhe's happy with how his organization has handled the situation so far, as the oddness of it continues to strike him: "I haven't actually seen a live hockey game in almost 10months. I probably wasn't 10months old the last time that happened."

Hevowed he'll continue to do everything in his power to put kids back on the ice safely.

"I think you can kind of look at it in the light of, 'Wow, there's a lot of responsibility here,'" he said. "Or you can kind of choose to look at it another way, which I tend to lean more towards.

"There's a ton of work to be done, but someone has to do it. So it might as well be me."

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