What about the plight of amateur leagues

Re: Support for CFL

The CFL will definitely need help emerging from this pandemic crisis. I fully support this, as, in this world of hyper 24-7 cable TV and gambling driven Big League sports, the CFL has been the poor cousin. Outside of the small market home of the nine franchises, it garners little attention.

Toronto is the exception, where it gets no attention at all, and no respect. The CFL is uniquely Canadian and deserves to be preserved.

What is not being discussed, as far as I can tell, is the plight of the many amateur leagues across the country that must be suffering.

For the last five years or so we have been avid followers of the Allen Cup League Hamilton Steelhawks. This the league that includes the Dundas Real McCoys, who provided us some great hockey as well, before Hamilton had its own team.

The Allen Cup national championship tournament was scheduled to be held in Hamilton and Dundas this year, starting April 6th. The Steelhawks had been building a strong, fast team over the last three years and were about to finish their playoff series with Brantford to become the Ontario Senior Champs on Friday March 13th when everything was abruptly cancelled. My heart goes out to the players, coaches, staff and owners of all the teams across the country who worked so hard to bring this fantastic hockey to a small, but hopefully growing base of fans.

Minor league hockey isn’t the only sport that will be hurting. The Minto Cup Jr. A Lacrosse championship was set to be played in St. Catharines this year, and many avid fans were eagerly looking forward to this. We were hopeful this crisis would pass before August, but it doesn’t look like it will.

I’m not worried about the big money sports. It’s the multiple tiers below the “Big Leagues” that are always struggling to survive, even in the best of times. The “Bigs” would show a lot of class were they to step up and help these embattled leagues.

It would be a national tragedy if we were to lose such institutions as the Mann Cup, Minto Cup, and the Allen Cup, as well as the dozens, perhaps hundreds of other amateur and minor pro leagues.

William Good, Hamilton