The only constant through the months of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic has been change. It feels as if almost daily our way of life is being altered in some manner.

Change hasn’t evaded the newspaper business. And it’s a change readers are going to notice when they pick up Saturday’s sports section.

In the last few months, the Sun-Gazette has shifted the printing of the paper to our sister paper in Altoona. Because of this, our deadlines have been moved up. Previously, pages had to be sent to the press room by 11:30 p.m., and during high school football Friday nights we were able to push that until midnight or so.

Now, because the paper is being printed so far away from our office and has to be shipped to Williamsport before being distributed, the sports staff’s deadline has been moved to 8 p.m. some nights and 9:30 p.m. on other nights.

You may be asking how this effects you as the reader? Well, those earlier deadlines are going to change how we, as a sports staff, present to you our weekly high school football coverage. With such early deadlines, you won’t see stories on individual games in Saturday’s paper. Instead, game stories will appear on our web site (www.sungazette.com) with a roundup notebook appearing in Monday’s edition for football stories.

It should be noted the way we cover high school football is not changing. How we present it to you the reader, however, is going to be different. We understand it’s going to take some getting used to. We understand it’s going to make some of you angry. But we’re doing the best with the hand we’ve been dealt.

It was important for us as a staff to be transparent with the readers about our coverage and the presentation of that coverage. We will still have photographers at multiple games each week and we hope to fill Saturday’s section with photos from those games.

The idea of a new normal is both scary and frustrating. We, as a staff, share in those frustrations with you. We have high expectations for ourselves to continue the award-winning coverage we’ve brought to the section over the years.

We ask for your patience as we find our footing. It is going to be different and it’s going to take some getting used to for everyone involved.

But when games kick off tonight, we’ll be there to chronicle everything that happens and you’ll be able to read about it on our web site.

Mitch Rupert can be reached at 570-326-1551, ext. 3129, or by email at mrupert@sungazette.com. Follow him on Twitter at @Mitch_Rupert.