Its 2020 still and Brian Reude has called again.
I had never heard of this organization and never knew that it could have such a grip on my success or failure, but in this season and in this environment it is everything. It is a faceless, controlling super power that threatens every part of my livelihood. Every part of my ability to put food on the table for my family and for my customers, my players, to pursue the passions that have driven them since their childhood.
We entered the season in a new world. Driven by fear and uncertainty, our New England Wolves program adapted, adjusted, and took the necessary precautions. It was a team effort by our staff. These involved quarantines, 10 day waiting periods, limited out of country and area recruiting, and following each states mandated procedures. We acquired host families with the understanding and knowledge that our athletes would have to be separated in some measure from exposure and exposing the rest of the home to COVID19.
Now, since there was exposure by an official who came to referee a game and did so from one rink then to our rink, we have had to get our athletes tested. None of the players are sick… but we have positive tests. A doomsday event that sets off a series of cascading triggers.
Ive worked and played hockey my whole life. Ive worked, coached and volunteered in this game for 20+ years to get to this point. A point where hockey is my full career. I own a Junior Hockey program and can devote my whole life to the game, and during my first conversation with the mysterious Brian Ruede he said the scariest thing Ive heard to date… “I will shut your business down.” Not if or when. Simply the statement of fact. Shut. It. Down.
He spends each and every night with me threatening me through the telephone. Complete compliance is his desired goal, and any deviation can have disastrous consequences.
In October of 2020 my business, the career that puts food on the table for my family and pays our bills, that regardless of whether it is successful or not I am on the hook for close to Half a Million dollars in ice rental and Junior Hockey Franchise fees, has been deemed non- essential. But to Whom?
We have a lot of kids in our youth program. 50+ players on our Junior teams who travelled to us purely for the opportunity to pursue their dreams and play in college. Families that depend on the income to officiate, coach, and work in the support staff. We have a community rink in which we are the largest customers and its success or failure depends on us paying the bills. This rink employs and services an entire ecosystem of skaters, players and lovers of the game. Now we are weeks into isolation. Players, coaches and staff all quarantined. Some with positive tests but no significant illnesses.
I stare at the time on my phone… each night, around 8pm I get a call from Mr Ruede. These never go pleasantly. He always has additional information that he has gathered from other sources that he hides from me and tries to ambush me to fact-find if I am truly being non-compliant. I have no interest in being non-compliant. We want to stay consistent, follow their rules, but their rules keep changing. These calls are driving me crazy. I am up at night. My fuse is so short I feel like a strung out drug addict. I have children who need to be fed, bathed and taken to school with their faces obscured each and every day with masks. My wife works in schools and is surrounded. Pulled under by these regulations daily. This feels like Hotel California. You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave. Once a series of players tests negative and fulfills their 10 day isolation, another case pops up causing everyone to go back into quarantine. This is now stretching, reaching into 30 days… into the month of November, when the state shuts down all hockey rinks. We are now officially plaque rats, the problem, the super spreader.
My heating bill is through the roof. I am home more often than other winters so our food and electricity bill is rising. We’ve had to pay out significant money to send our non-infected players, players who tested negative, to an entirely different living situation. To prevent cross contamination. Airbnb’s are the only choice as hotels do not allow 18 year olds to stay by themselves. We are hemoragging money from the business to pay for alternative places to live in addition to their host families, just for these players to hope to play again. What does the future of the season look like? I do not know. Members of the community voice their opinions about me and our program on social media. None of it reflects the good we’ve ever done or tried to do.
I get a call from Lynda Ruel. She works for the state and her son played in our program. She can hear it in my voice. People are looking at me like Im the cause for this contagion. Near the completion of the call she sheds a sliver of humanity, “You have to give them the information they ask for, but please take care of yourself.” she says. What I dont hear is any end in sight.
The National Guard is alerted for an immediate test of all players and staff in the program. Many programs play in the rink, but this is exclusively for the New England Wolves and its network of families.
The trucks come in and they arrive in the parking lot on a Tuesday morning starting at 8am. This feels like the final scenes from the movie E.T. Swabs, white suits, mobile testing centers, and military personnel are on the grounds of the Merrill Fay Arena in Laconia, NH testing the New England Wolves for COVID19 after a month of quarantine and isolation, but caused by increasing positive tests from other rinks in the state. We have complied with their demands. We applied for relief funds, but were deemed non-essential and TOO small of a business (we were told), so no relief was given. Im only writing checks and swiping our company card, delivering food outside the door of the condo’s of our quarantined kids, and hoping that maybe we can one day get back to the game.
When parents choose to take their kids to school at 8am on a Tuesday instead of being tested… it is somehow something I must have done wrong. Something I communicated inappropriately.
This is the longest season of my life, and it leads into a devastating winter of isolation, closure, and confusion
