Earlier today, Alaska Fairbanks announced the decision to opt-out of the season. Did this decision come easy? Heck no! UAF knew that they won’t have a conference home next year.

What does this mean for the Beavers…and the rest of the WCHA? Good question. BSU was scheduled to play in Fairbanks January 22nd and 23rd.

For months, there have been questions about how to get teams to Alaska to play this year. The State of Alaska, early on in Covid, had quarantines of 14 days for anyone traveling to Alaska. Obviously, that would not work with a college team flying in for a weekend.

Then, since the teams would be testing multiple times per week, the State said that teams could come to Alaska to play.

Then, rumors started to surface that UAF might play their games in the lower 48 to make it easier to handle Covid restrictions from the state. Then, this week, another rumor surfaced that UAF would play their home games in Marquette, and stay at Northern Michigan for the year.

Did any of these rumor make sense?

Absolutely not isn’t strong enough. There wasn’t a chance in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that any of these plans made sense for the student athletes at UAF.

Since I’m not being tested, I don’t have access to the players and coaching staff like years past. In the past, when riding on the same bus as the team, I’d hear things that were coming down the pike.

This year, I don’t. I don’t need to hear any conversations on the bus to know that this decision by UAF was not only right for them…but the league as well.

Since I can’t travel with the team this year, I started looking into flights to Fairbanks last week. My flight, from Bemidji to Minneapolis, to Fairbanks…and back…was around $700. I didn’t want to book the flight last week, knowing that the games may move…or not be played at all.

I’m glad I waited…but that’s exactly why this decision was the right move. UAF couldn’t in their right mind send their team on the road for three months. The other teams in the WCHA couldn’t very well book flights to UAF and HOPE that the games would be played.

As long as the calendar reads 2020, and Covid is still here, this was the only logical decision that could be made.