Parents,

Based on a confluence of changing conditions with Virginia’s Phase III guidelines, lack of specific information from our home rinks at Mount Vernon and Fort Dupont, and other concerns associated with items such as ice cost and school schedules for the fall, we are changing our confidence assessment regarding our ability to organize and field teams for fall 20/21 to LOW. Therefore, NVHC cannot guarantee we will have organized CBHL, Girls, or CCHL teams this fall. Planning for 8U House will be finalized once we receive further information from Mount Vernon.  The Club does not intend to use any other facility than Mount Vernon for 8U House. 

Hockey Updates

• Based on recent engagements with Mount Vernon management, NVHC has low confidence in our ability to predict when we will get ice, how much will be available, and what restrictions will apply for ice usage at Mt. Vernon or Ft. Dupont, our two primary rinks.  While we have medium confidence we can secure ice at Haymarket and Laurel in amounts similar to past seasons, we do not believe this is enough to serve as the sole ice for the Club and we do not believe it’s feasible or wise to operate from two geographically distant rinks that also run their own programs. We are not currently considering use of these rinks as the potential sole source of ice for Aug-Oct for any of our programs.
• We have low confidence in our ability to determine the size and cost of our program. Rink guidance across the DMV on how many players can skate on a sheet is constantly changing (along with the restrictions on activities that can be performed on the ice). Other rinks from which we have rented ice in the past have either increased their costs, limited the number of players we can put on the ice at once, or both. 
• We have low confidence that the CBHL and CCHL will be able to support having games in the fall based on current Virginia Phase III recreational sport guidelines.
• We have low confidence that we will be able to execute a normal weeknight practice schedule due to the recently published Fairfax County school schedule that includes a 4:50 pm release time for some elementary students.  

We will continue to gather information from our partner rinks and announce more specifics on our fall/spring hockey programming once we have better information. We expect this will not occur prior to mid-August (right at or outside the window provided to us for providing initial CBHL rosters to the League). 

PVAHA guidance for 10-18U Travel and 10-19U Girls states that clubs can offer positions for new players starting July 20th. Based on the NVHC uncertainties, we want to share these confidence assessments with parents now to make sure no players miss the opportunity to tryout at clubs that feel they have more control over what they can offer in the Aug-Oct timeframe.

We will leave our no-cost registration open into mid-August so players can return to register after other clubs have made their own travel and girls roster decisions. We will not roster players until we can definitively announce what we can offer and when players can get on the ice. If you decide to leave for another hockey opportunity, please let us know as soon as possible so we can update our registration data. You can re-register later. Contact tim.froemke@novaicedogs.org for CBHL and carson.evans@novaicedogs.org for Girls.

We will still run our planned on-ice sessions on the 26th of July at Haymarket. Players who paid to attend this session may still do so. 10U and older players who would like to attend this session to provide coaches with more information for later roster decisions or just to have an opportunity to skate, may also sign up using the Coed > New to CBHL Travel link. Please indicate your intent for the skate in the free text block labeled “If you played at a different club last season, what club, age group, and level.”  

Updated Spring Refund Policy

Given the current unknowns and delayed season start, as well as to simplify our accounting going forward, we plan to refund the previously collected spring fees rather than apply them to fall registration. Because the Club incurs other expenses beyond ice (that occur whether we are skating or not), we will refund 85% of spring fees on Thursday, August 13th. As a non-profit organization, we are always appreciative of donations which allow us to continue to provide a high quality, low cost hockey experience to our players. If you would like to donate all or a portion of your Spring fees, please let us know by replying to this email before August 1st. 

Regardless of whether the spring refund applies to you, if you would like to donate to the Club, you can do that through our registration system. The donation option is available at registration step 1.3.  We greatly appreciate your consideration as fees and donations are our only Club revenue.

Thank you to all of our Ice Dog players, coaches, volunteers, and families for your understanding, patience and cooperation while we monitor our ability to get back on the ice.

NVHC Board Members