For much of the past two years amid the pandemic, the opportunities for community sports have been far greater than for school teams. That trend continues.
On Friday, B.C. School Sports learned from the Ministry of Education any event, single-day, or multi-day with more than two teams participating cannot take place at this time. This comes after Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced earlier this week youth tournaments, at the club and community levels, can proceed again as of Feb. 1.
“We are stunned by this decision, as there was a commitment made this year to ensuring club and community sport access remained equal to school sport, and to have this decision made at such a critical time of year is disheartening for everyone involved in school sport and continues to threaten and erode at the long-term health and sustainability of school sport,” said B.C. School Sports executive director Jordan Abney in a prepared statement.
“The Ministry has indicated this will be reviewed on a week-by-week basis, but with no firm indication of when the K-12 Guidelines may be altered to align with the orders as put in place by the Provincial Health Officer, we will continue to advocate strongly for the return of school sport tournaments and share in the frustration undoubtedly felt by student-athletes, coaches, parents, and supporters across the province. At this time, we are not cancelling provincial events, and continue to plan for these events, as well as variable contingencies that may be required. We will update the membership as soon as more information becomes available.”
The high school basketball season is hitting the stretch run with zone playoffs about three weeks away. The zone playoffs and provincial championships are typically tournament formats held at a neutral site venue for the various tiers.
No competitions took place during the 2020/21 school year and B.C. School Sports had to scramble during the recent fall season when highway closures resulted in some provincial playoffs becoming regional events. Now the clock is ticking on the winter sports season.
“We were in contact [with the Ministry of Education] many times this week providing critical information on the importance of these events, and the tight timelines due to upcoming zone and provincial events,” added Abney. “We communicated that having to adapt zone events would have a significant impact on the direct financial costs for kids and their families, the costs to schools, the impact on school time missed, or events that may not even happen at all. We expressed our concern about the immense cost that our student-athletes have felt already over the past 24 months."
