Thank you for your patience in this very fluid environment. COVID 19 keeps throwing us challenges; however, we are very adaptable and extremely grateful to rise out of this with very minimal health impacts to our Cairns community.
With the announcement today of the QLD government stage 3 road map, Cairns Hockey will be able to resume community sport from 4pm Friday 20th August. The COVID19 restrictions applied the last 2 weeks has impacted on our 2021 winter season competition. We were not able to complete week 14 for seven divisions. Without impacting on Grand Finals and finishing our season, with finals we have only two weeks to complete the competition in its current format.
We have discussed a few options; extending the season, reducing competition games, eliminating finals, and only playing grand finals and trying to fit two round games, finals, and grand finals in two weeks. We have received recommendations from our competition advisory group and have consulted and discussed with our club presidents and their club committees. The Cairns Hockey team were able to work through and discuss several options with the goal to achieve the best outcome for most of our members that included participation, and the least impact on the competition format.
The outcome we release today was unanimously approved by our club presidents and supported by Wynand and I. Cairns Hockey will proceed to play week 15 from Friday 20th August and Saturday 21st August. Please see below.
Unfortunately, week 14 of the competition won’t count towards the final ladder standings for all divisions except for divisions with bye games (divisions with unequal number of teams). This is due to a constraint in time to fit in all the games of week 14. A review of each division assisted in the unanimous decision that it won’t have a major impact on the final standings and further ensure equity of games. Moreover, this provides the opportunity for all teams to return to the pitch to complete their season and allows time to play a final round before proceeding to Grand Finals.
Finals will proceed as a 3-team final format- 1st place on the ladder straight through to the grand final and 2 v 3 to play finals. Finals to commence from Thursday 26th August to Saturday 28th August (Please see information below). We will not proceed with the 4-team final for this year due to COVID19 restrictions. Please note there will be exceptions to the rules for the revised 2021 winter season due to COVID19. These will be released in due course.
Grand Finals will proceed on the original dates from Thursday 2nd September to Saturday 4th September. Thank you for your patience. We appreciate the change to the competition at this late notice is an inconvenience. We do however feel it is important for our members to get hockey back on the field.
Thank you, Kym McPhee-Smith
General Manager- Cairns Hockey Association
➢ Grand finals to proceed as per the Grand Finals format
Thursday 2nd September- Masters Men and Women
Friday 3rd September- U18 boys, U18B girls, A grade women
Saturday 4th September- P56, U14, C Grade, B Grade and U18A Girls, A grade men
➢ P56 Presentations Saturday 28th August 9.30am
➢ U14 Presentations Saturday 28th August 1.00pm
➢ P1234 Break up and presentation Friday 3rd September 5.45pm on Grass Field 3
