One day after Gov. Charlie Baker ordered hockey rinks in Massachusetts shuttered because of COVID-19 concerns, parents gathered up their children’s gear and headed home from rinks around the state.
And while the financial impact to the rinks will be difficult, some businesses near the arenas are hoping the patrons who come in before, during or after hockey practices will keep supporting them.
“It’s disheartening,” Mike Gardner, the general manager at Bay State Brewing Company said. “But we know our hockey families are very loyal.”
Bay State Brewing Company opened inside the Worcester Ice Center on Harding Street shortly before the novel coronavirus took hold.
While that has presented a challenge, Gardner said the pub has been able to weather that storm because of loyal patrons and a small menu of good food.
“The food is quite good, not your typical pub food,” Gardner said. “People get something they don’t expect.”
He said hopefully those things will carry Bay State Brewery Company through the next two weeks as the ice center closes down its rinks in accordance with the new regulations.
Baker made the announcement on Thursday, giving skating facilities until Friday evening to close and setting a reopening date of Nov. 7. The decision came after the state Department of Public Health announced that there have been at least 30 clusters of COVID-19 associated with organized ice hockey activities.
Those involved residents from more than 60 municipalities in the state. Each of the clusters includes two or more confirmed or probable COVID-19 cases, for a total of 108 confirmed cases, the DPH said.
At the Worcester Ice Center, Derek Alafam said the staff will remain employed and will be doing maintenance, cleaning and setting up for any new requirements that might be foisted upon the rinks before Nov. 7.
“The building itself is open,” he said. “”We’ve been following the protocols if not going above and beyond.”
At the New England Sports Center in Marlboro, visitors were being asked to sign in and while the Junior Bruins were playing a game Friday afternoon, there were few spectators.
The facility’s assistant general manager, Jamie O’Leary, said the shutdown will likely impact The New England Seafood Restaurant on the second floor.
It was unclear whether the restaurant would remain open for the two weeks, O’Leary said, because the news of the rink closures was less than 24-hours old and many specifics hadn’t been worked out. The pro shop’s response was also being mulled.
“We’re still deciding what to do with staff,” he said.
Friday afternoon, outside the New England Sports Center, a young boy left the rink, his mother carrying his gear and a younger child as he toted his hockey stick. As they walked toward their car, the boy slowed and looked back several times toward the rink.
Nearby, a store called Pure Hockey had few, if any, customers inside Friday as the last day of hockey wound down.
At the Solomon Pond Mall, a short distance away, restaurants see some traffic related to the rink but didn’t expect to notice a drop off in business due to the closure.
O’Leary said that like the Ice Center, staff are just, “making sure the (hockey) experience feels normal for kids.”
In Worcester, not far from the ice center, Maddie’s Cookery & Taphouse was having a normal day Friday.
Manager Alex Dos Santos said she doesn’t think the shutdown will have an impact on the eatery since they don’t generally see a lot of hockey families.