The update that follows contains a number of important points and aims to covers a variety of questions that have been raised recently.

We firstly hope you and all your family and friends are safe and well in these difficult and ever changing time.

From the very outset of our approach to this unprecedented situation we have maintained a fundamental approach to the safety and welfare of every person associated with Sutton Sting. Your Executive Team know, based on feedback that some of you understandably question our risk averse approach which may feel more restrictive than what you see happening at other clubs and is tighter than messages from the EIHA.

We know we are asking so much from all of you and we thank you for your continued support of patience, but with the current rates of infection in Nottinghamshire and Sheffield now in the new Government Tier 2 “High” category we believe we have taken the right approach.

We continue to work with the Lammas to get the training facility up and running and will hopefully have positive news shortly, subject of course to any area wide restrictions outside of the control of the club and the Lammas. However in the 4 -5 weeks we have managed to train out of SIV (Sheffield), the local and national rate of infection has significantly deteriorated.

The EIHA phased return to Hockey is currently at Level 3. We have made a decision to use a hybrid of the rules in phases 2 and 3. We will maintain social distancing and will only allow players to train on a session if they have not trained, been on any other type of ice hockey event elsewhere in the past 10 days. Whilst we know the will be unpopular I again please ask you to consider the overriding principle of safety to everyone in the club.

We are now, more than ever before, heavily reliant on volunteers to widen their personal social interaction when coaching. Without these volunteers sessions cannot take place so we need to do absolutely everything possible to ensure to mitigate their risk to exposure. I would ask this to be at the forefront of your mind when thinking about the time period to get sessions up and running.

In terms of registrations we have considered this in great detail but to maintain protection for all with Governing body policy cover, have asked before sessions are attended that all players be registered. From tomorrow (15/10/20) absolutely no player can be on a Sutton Sting session from now without being registered.

As a result of an early shut down last season a pro rata refund was made to all clubs for registration costs and we are in the process of passing this onto you.

We will get through these difficult times together but it certainly feels that this will be a long haul. Sutton Sting will continue and come through this stronger and healthier it is just taking longer in the short term than we hoped to get up and running but as we look back over the past few weeks that in hindsight may not be a poor outcome. t