ST. ANDREWS, N.B. -- The puck has dropped on the second Veterans Cup in Charlotte County, a hockey challenge involving around 130 children aged six to nine.

Twelve teams from New Brunswick and one from Nova Scotia are participating, but this year, things look much different --- with strict protocols in place to make sure public health guidelines are being met.

"I don't know if I've put as much time and effort into many things in my life as I did this one," said Jeff Gregor, the president of Southern Icedogs hockey."I think I'm at close to 140 hours invested now."

The event is being held jointly by the towns of St. Andrews and St. Stephen this weekend, at the W.C. O'Neill Arena and the Garcelon Civic Centre.

Along with mandatory masks, parents are also required to fill out a COVID-19 screening questionnaire before each game and to give their information for contact tracing.

There will also be no handshakes at the end of games.

"The parents are also split up," Gregor said. "The home team is sitting upstairs, and the away team is sitting downstairs to avoid congestion in the area. We've also put in a policy that there's also one parent, no siblings in here."

St. Andrews Mayor Doug Naish says he's confident they have everything under control and that the town is estimated to see $100,000 in financial spinoffs.

"I don't see this as being any more risk than when we had lots of people visiting us in the summertime and complying with the rules of the day," Naish said.