At a recent Emmaus girls basketball game, something seemed to be missing. The teams were there, the coaches were there. The scoreboards kept track of the status of the game and the cheerleaders cheered with every home basket. Even the hornet mascot was there dancing around and cheering on the Lady Hornets.

But something was oddly off; there were no fans to enjoy the game. It’s the new normal for winter sports where fans are few and definitely far between, at best.

Some local teams allow a limited number of fans into games, while other schools don’t allow any spectators. Perhaps on Senior Night, schools allow the families of senior players to stick around for the game after a pregame ceremony. If a player is closing in on a milestone, such as 1,000 points in basketball or 100 wins in wrestling, their family is generally welcomed. Other than that, the seats are empty.

“I think the girls have adjusted to it,” said Emmaus girls basketball head coach Kelsey Gallagher. “Like everything else, we’ve just had to adjust to the situation. It’s just another casualty of everything that’s been happening.”

The production of a game at Emmaus is done pretty much like it has always been done. One missing element is that the DJ that the school generally has on hand to play music during timeouts and between quarters is absent. It adds to the silence that is broken only by cheerleaders, players and coaches.

“It’s weird during a timeout because you don’t have to yell over the music for the players to hear you,” said Gallagher with a laugh. “Now you have to be careful not to talk too loud so that what you’re saying doesn’t echo around the gym. That’s one of the times that I notice the absence of fans the most, because it can get really loud.”

Some schools roll up the unneeded bleachers on one side of the gym to allow the seats for the players to be spread out into rows, allowing the players to be socially distanced from each other throughout the game. At Emmaus, bleachers on both sides of the gym are still in place, but the players, who usually take up the first couple rows of the bleachers are now spread further up the bleachers and off to the next section of seating. On the other side of the gym there is plenty of room for the cheerleaders to remain socially distanced while they cheer from their seats, staying masked up throughout the entire game, just as the players and coaches must do.

Nowhere was the absence of fans more noticeable than in the recent swim meet between Emmaus and Parkland. The rivalry is one of the biggest in local sports, matching two perennial favorites against each other. The teams have rituals that they go through before the meet and throughout the meet and the fans are absolutely involved. There are good-natured chants back and forth and the sound of the fans echoes throughout the natatorium.

This year, all EPC swim meets are being done virtually, meaning that the teams are timed in their own pool and then compiled to see who won each event.

“Unfortunately, it’s the way we have to do things right now,” said Emmaus swimming and diving head coach Tim O’Connor. “It’s just not safe to have both teams in one place, let alone have the seats packed with fans from both schools. I think of any time this season, that meet was when not having fans became really evident. That’s a meet where you even have alumni coming back to visit and see kids that were on the team from a few years back and this season, it was just like every other meet. It’s especially unfortunate for the seniors because that’s the meet that certainly means the most to them.”

Now, at an Emmaus swim meet, the bleachers are filled with the rest of the team waiting to swim in their event. The only swimmers allowed on the deck are the ones competing in the current event and the students who are taking part in the next event. The swimmers file down through the locker rooms just before their event and return to the bleachers immediately following their turn in the pool.

It remains to be seen just how districts will play out. The EPC has canceled its league playoffs in order to play out games and meets that were canceled either because of coronavirus cases or bad weather. For now, players, coaches, referees and even media are adjusting to high school sports in the COVID era.