New Audience Regulations Puts Stress on Families

All of the Northshore schools have new policies in place for viewing sporting events to prevent the spread of COVID-19, but families and athletes are facing problems due to the new rules.

Before the school year began, the Northshore schools had to come up with a new plan with how to deal with sporting events and how to regulate audience members from spreading COVID-19. Athletic director Scott Helms and the other athletic directors along with the superintendents all met before the fall sports began to discuss their plans on handling sports in response to COVID-19.

The model that was decided on was two immediate family members per player were able to attend games.

“That means my grandparents, siblings, or cousins can never come watch me play,” senior Abigail Hoffmann said. “It kind of sucks because this is my senior year.”

According to the Northshore Conference Guidelines, under the football, soccer, cross country and volleyball section, only the people who hold this pass can attend the certain sport and team. While swimming, due to Hartford’s size, cannot let anyone in to watch the meets. Golf is limited to immediate families with no cap on amount, and tennis has no spectator limitations, but just too keep social distance and to wear a mask.

Some families are not in favor of these new regulations.

“I don’t think cross country and football should have the same regulations because in cross country people can spread out along the course and social distancing is easy,” senior Jordan Zainer said. “With football though the fans are all bunched in one area so social distancing isn’t very feasible.”

Zainer is a member of the varsity cross country team while his brother is a senior varsity football player, his family is one of many that has problems with the new guidelines.

Zainer said when his brother plays football, his family cannot all go and watch him play and they have to take turns going to his games. This is the same problem in bigger families with multiple siblings where a family cannot all go together.

Helms and the other athletic directors will discuss their plans with the winter sports and the audience guidelines. “I would love to see students at our games supporting their classmates in a safe manner,” Helms said.

This is the hope, but there is still much to talk about in regards to the regulations being loosened or more strict in the upcoming sporting events taking place in winter.