WHEN Michelle Stevenson first took on the role as secretary of Premier League Hockey she "never thought in a million years" that she would see play cancelled due to a pandemic.
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But following the latest COVID-19 outbreak in New South Wales and those who have visited the Greater Sydney area including the Blue Mountains forced into self-isolation, that is exactly what has happened.
The PLH committee made decision to cancel all round 11 games following a meeting on Wednesday night and a subsequent vote from all club delegates.
"After reviewing the health orders that have come through and how they impact community sport, we feel it's in the best interest that hockey is cancelled this week due to the number of players impacted by that health order," Stevenson said.
"Health and safety is the first and foremost consideration, I think common sense has prevailed.
"We are doing this with the view of returning with the double-header weekend for the girls and the normal round for the men."
While games have been cancelled due to poor weather such as snow and lightning in the past, doing so because of a pandemic is an unfortunate first in the history of the PLH competition.
"It's just a whole new life isn't really?," Stevenson said.
"People are going to start putting new things into their constitutions and by-laws now, but we never thought in a million years it was something we had to think about for our constitution and by-laws, a pandemic."
All games this Saturday will be classified as a nil-all draw, with Stevenson saying pushing the competition back a week or trying to fit the games in on another weekend where other games are already allotted were not feasible options.
That is because semi-finals are due to start on July 17, and the six women's teams have a double-header in Bathurst on July 10, as well as the Australian Country Championships still slated to be played in Cairns from August 7-14.
"If we had to reschedule games it could see teams playing three games in one or two days which would have been very hard," Stevenson said.
"We had to consider players are still going away for country too, so we couldn't push the season back, everyone wanted to be finished before country.
"They've not made a decision on country yet, so we couldn't just say we'll push the competition back two weeks because we have so many people in NSW Country teams, we were up against it.
"When you take all the feeling out of it, it's the best solution for everyone."
The Saints men had been due to play Lithgow Storm, the Pat's women to meet Exies and Souths and Bathurst City to clash in a derby.
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