Thursday, February 10, 2022

Full capacity QMJHL arenas coming soon

Full capacity arenas are returning soon to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

That is the plan/hope, at least. With Quebec and the Maritimes unveiling their reopening plans over the past few days, the QMJHL released a handy news release explaining the capacity situation in each jurisdiction.

The three New Brunswick clubs will be the first to allow full capacity, which begins next Friday. The majority of the Quebec teams will be allowed full barns by the end of the month while the two Nova Scotia clubs and the Charlottetown Islanders will have to wait nearly two more months.

Here are the breakdowns by province:

New Brunswick
Feb. 18 - Full capacity

Nova Scotia
Feb. 14 - 50% capacity up to 3,000 fans
March14 - 75% capacity up to 5,000 fans
April 14 - Full capacity

Prince Edward Island
Feb. 17 - 50% capacity
March 17 - 75% capacity
April 7 - Full capacity

Quebec
Feb. 21 - 50% capacity
Feb. 28 - Full capacity (except Videotron Centre)
March 14 - Full capacity

Large venues like Quebec City's Videotron Centre and Montreal's Bell Centre must wait until March 14 to be at full capacity

The league also unveiled the Maritimes Division schedule for the remainder of the regular season on Thursday. The regular season will come to a close on Sunday, May 1.

While this is all exciting news, it's important to remember that we still live in COVID times, meaning the capacity dates could change (for better or for worse) and it's almost a certainty that there will scheduling adjustments made at some point. The Maritime Junior Hockey League returned to action on Sunday with one game and both of those teams are now sidelined with positive COVID cases.

Atlantic University Sport, meanwhile, unveiled its full men's hockey schedule for the remainder of the regular season Thursday. The regular season will end March 5. The University Cup will now be played March 31 to April 3 on the Acadia University campus in Wolfville rather than Halifax's Scotiabank Centre.

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