Curling season just a stone's throw away on P.E.I.

There is no skipping curling season on Prince Edward Island.

Curl P.E.I. says an operational plan is in place for a return to play this fall.

The organization worked with Curling Canada to prepare return-to-play guidelines and held a web seminar with clubs about them last month, says Curl P.E.I. executive director Amy Duncan.

Now an operational plan has been worked out with the province — there will be some changes due to COVID-19, she said.

"There's not a lot of contact directly related to our sport so we are lucky in that way but we still have made some modifications just to help with the physical distancing," she said.

"We are going to start the season with one sweeper and we're also going to take Curling Canada's suggestions of not having the skip sweep any of the opposition stones."

Clubs have to adjust

Duncan said individual clubs will also make adjustments according to the space in their own rinks to ensure physical distancing.

"They will take our operation plan and they'll have to add to it," she said. "We have kind of taken care of the field of play and they'll have to add to it in terms of, you know, how the curler comes in the door."

It looks like we should be able to host bonspiels and our provincial championships.— Amy Duncan, Curl P.E.I.

Clubs will have to determine how to set safety measures, like separate entrances and exits — and it will be up to each individual club to decide when to start playing games, Duncan said.

"As soon as the clubs are ready to open we're good to go in terms of play," she said.

Multi-day tournaments will also be allowed as long as they are kept to cohorts of 50 people per day.

"It looks like we should be able to host bonspiels and our provincial championships, but we haven't put a whole lot of detail into figuring out what those will actually look like until we know our clubs are ready to go."

Duncan said players are anxious to get back on the ice.

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