AYLMER, ONT. — In 47 years, Greg Thompson has lived in four homes, and they were all in Aylmer, Ont., which is where he eventually married his middle-school sweetheart and raised two daughters. He has a tire shop in town and his wife works in public health, but their unpaid hours are spent in the local rink.
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Greg played junior hockey and apologizes for getting a lump in his throat when he describes the joy of coaching his girls. Laryssa, his wife, logged countless winter kilometres across the 401 en route to tiny towns she only knew because they had an arena. A dark iron decal on their back patio reads more like a declaration: “Hockey Lives Here.”
Lately, though, hockey had become the source of anxiety. Greg is the volunteer president of the Aylmer Spitfires, a Junior C franchise lost in a thicket of pandemic-related issues. Local restaurants — the ones who might sign a $500 cheque to sponsor a game — had been hit hard. Attendance would be restricted this season, and a shorter schedule meant there were fewer home games to cover overhead costs that would be the same as previous seasons, if not higher.
And then there was Aylmer itself, a rural postcard two hours west of Toronto, where divisions created by the COVID-19 response have rendered the town unrecognizable to long-time residents. Anti-mask protests have been held on local streets, and the discord has earned national media attention.
According to data released by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences last month, 44.73 per cent of eligible residents in the N5H postal code — which includes Aylmer — were fully vaccinated. That makes it one of the least-vaccinated postal codes in the province. (Across Ontario, 80 per cent of eligible residents are fully vaccinated.)
Greg Thompson convened an emergency meeting with the team’s board of directors in early September. Amid all the challenges facing the Spitfires, if only 45 per cent of locals were vaccinated, how many fans would even be allowed inside the arena to watch them play this winter?
The board’s vote was unanimous: They would ask their league for a one-year leave of absence.
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“You figure people are going to get vaccinated,” said Thompson. “But that’s not happening. That’s the biggest downside for us.”
It had been weighing on Thompson for weeks. The Spitfires were founded, in 2003, from the ashes of another junior team that had littered more than $40,000 in debts across Aylmer. A group of 15 business people settled the debts, regained local trust and moved ahead under the guiding principle that the new team should never be allowed to operate at a loss.
“I think he feels a huge responsibility, in the team dying with him sort of thing,” said Laryssa. “I don’t think that’s what he would ever want to see happen. But the pandemic has been so unpredictable and we’re living it in real-time.”
Stepping onto the ice for a Junior C team in Ontario is less a step toward the NHL than a step to extend a competitive minor hockey career. The Spitfires play in the Provincial Junior Hockey League, against regional rivals such as Dorchester, Thamesford, North Middlesex and Lucan.
Players can be products of the local minor hockey system who return home from university or college to play on the weekend. The East Elgin Community Complex can become a weekly reunion for family and friends, as well as fans. In normal times, a Junior C team can pull a community together.
“We need it in Aylmer,” said Glenda Nagy. “Aylmer’s a small town, and we need it.”
Nagy started off as secretary on the team’s board of directors, then moved to treasurer. She is now both secretary and treasurer, serving as the central nervous system of the day-to-day operations. Without her, Greg Thompson said, the Spitfires would not have been able to function.
On a good night, the Spitfires might play in front of 250 fans. Nagy said it costs $150 to have a permit to run a bar in a special room in the arena, and it costs $150 to rent the room itself. With the pandemic limiting capacity in that room to 30 or fewer people, she said the economics started working against the team. (It costs about $90,000 to run the team for a season.)
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“We have a lot of groups who don’t think it’s necessary to get vaccinated,” she said. “So if we have a requirement that we have to be double-vaccinated to get into the arena and that kind of thing, then we won’t have any spectators, either.”
Andy Grozelle, the chief administrative officer in Aylmer, said the town would be enforcing provincial regulations at the arena. As of Sept. 22, he said that meant spectators would have to provide proof of vaccination before entering the building. He said Aylmer had contracted an external security provider for the screening process, which meant neither city nor team staff would have to serve as bouncer at the front door.
“If there’s anything that we can do to try to support the Spitfires,” he said, “we will.”
Wayne Gavey is a retired deputy fire chief and a founding member of the Spitfires. His wife, Yvonne, has been working the front gate for games, meaning she collects the fees from fans after they climb up the stairs to the seating area.
“The N5H, our postal code, has not been friendly,” said Gavey. “We have a lot of anti-vaxxers … It’s been really driving a wedge in our entire community.”
At 64, he said he still plays recreational hockey two or three times a week. (At least twice a week in the summer, but up to four times a week over the winter.) His son was captain of the Spitfires, and the team has been part of his life for the better part of two decades.
“It’s gotten to a point now where I’m not willing to argue with anybody over it anymore,” he said. “We were right on board. We got ours done as soon as possible. Double-vaccinated, right off the kick. In the last 16 or 18 months, I think it’s just brought so much stupidity out into the public.”
Not everything can be blamed on COVID-19, he said, but the pandemic has magnified the problems.
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“It is important to understand every team in our division faces similar challenges,” Sandra Neubauer, a former chair of the PJHL and current team president in Lucan, wrote in an email. “In fact, many teams across the entire league have been adversely affected by the requirements of the pandemic in similar ways to Aylmer.”
In the calendar of a hockey year, the Spitfires made their request for a leave of absence three minutes before New Year’s. Terry Whiteside, the commissioner of the PJHL, said the league had already made and distributed its regular-season schedule before word came in from Aylmer.
The discussion had to go to the league’s board of governors, then to the Ontario Hockey Association for approval. On Sept. 26, less than a week before the season was set to begin, Whiteside called Thompson with the news: The league would permit Aylmer to take a year off, recover then regroup for next year.
“I don’t think our board would even have considered it if they weren’t known to be a strong organization,” said Whiteside. “They’ve never been a team that has been on the watch list.”
It will not be easy for the teams left behind this year, he said, with some municipalities enforcing rules beyond the provincial requirements. Whiteside said at least five towns will only allow players into the rink 15 minutes before their game, and require they leave 15 minutes after the final buzzer.
“We’ve got quite a few teams that are restricted to around 100 fans, and eight-to-10 players in a dressing room, with no showers,” said Whiteside. “So you’ve got players driving an hour-and-a-half to play junior hockey, and not being able to shower.”
Sitting on his patio, with the “Hockey Lives Here” sign on the wall over his shoulder, Greg Thompson listed the other challenges facing the team. Amid all the uncertainty, he said, the general manager quit, and the team did not have a head coach in place.
The local minor hockey association was not fielding an under-18 representative team this season, and it was getting harder to recruit players from other centres. In August, the local newspaper ran a story with the headline “Aylmer Spitfires on the verge of folding” due to a lack of volunteer interest.
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Thompson said the article led to expressions of interest, but with the impact of the pandemic laid clear, there was not enough time to bring anyone aboard before the vote to seek a leave of absence.
In Canadian hockey lore, the game was supposed to thrive in small towns like Aylmer. And as he sat in his backyard, that future seemed uncertain.
“That’s the sad part,” he said. “You asked me why I do it: The passion, I grew up with it.”
(Top photos: Geoff Robins, Tim Clayton, Steve Russell / Getty Images)