Premier League Hockey president Michelle Stevenson is giving clubs until May 17 to put forward their suggestions for a revamped season that's been given the green light to kick-off on July 18.
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The date also marks the time frame that paid-up players will have to make a decision on their registration fees as Hockey NSW announced on April 24 that anyone who's been impacted by the coronavirus will be eligible for a full refund.
"We've given clubs that time to contact players and get back to us with how everyone wants to move forward," Stevenson said.
"We won't know anything until then but the players have that time to decide if they want to play and clubs will have an input on how they want the competition to look."
The July 18 return date is exactly three months after the PLH season was set to kick-off in 2020 and due to the drastically shorter season, Stevenson isn't sure it would be fair for the same title to be up for grabs.
"The perpetual trophy's been won after an 18-week season so it's a bit unfair if you're taking the glory after a much shorter competition, she said.
"We might be thinking about more of a round robin type competition. Instead of winning a medal and being premiers it might be first past the post and a financial reward.
"We'll sit down as a committee and put it all together. We've got until July 18."
As for the refunding of players' registration fees, Stevenson expects Hockey NSW to be understanding with its money-back promise.
"I expect them to be fairly lenient and easy going with a lot of things," she said.
"I'm not 100 percent sure what the criteria is but people who have lost their job would be eligible for a refund... that's the way I would look at it."
While the competition structure will look very different to what it ever has before, Stevenson doesn't think the number of teams will change but can't be sure on anything during a situation like this.
"I'd like to think no one will pull out but it's just really hard to comprehend at this stage," she said. PLH clubs have between now and May 17 to decide what kind of season structure they'd like to see in 2020 and the registered players have the same time frame to decide whether or not they'll play this year or wait until next season.
Jake Humphreys
Sports nut at the Central Western Daily.
Sports nut at the Central Western Daily.
