Sparring remains down for the count
Boxing clubs re-open under strict COVID -19 safety protocols
It’s been three months since boxing clubs across Ontario fell silent.
Heavy bags hung unused. Golden glove training abruptly came to a halt. Boxercise classes were no longer an option. All due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gyms across Niagara Region began to worry. How could they effectively re-open and teach a highcontact sport — without any contact?
“It was more frustrating than anything because there was no end in sight to this at one point. The nature of the sport is contact. You’re always encouraging contact.” said St. Catharines Boxing Club coach Bruce Greenlaw.
“You just think we’re going to be the very, very, very last thing to open.”
Greenlaw credits Boxing Ontario’s creation of the COVID-19 task force with putting together a safe return plan that enabled clubs to re-open as part of Stage 2 of Ontario’s reopening plan.
Once the sport’s provincial governing body received the go-ahead from the Ontario government, it sent members essential safety standards and guidelines to follow.
One of the first steps was sanitizing the entire club. Greenlaw, a retired firefighter, was able to use his free time over the last month to clean everything “top to bottom, side to side,” jumpstarting St. Catharines’ reopening last Tuesday.
The club also implemented new rules, asking students to register for each class in advance due to the cap of 10 individuals — including coaches — allowed in the gym at one time. Physical distancing is being enforced outside the building as students arrive, and every individual must take a COVID-19 symptom screening prior to entry.
Inside, Greenlaw and head coach Joe Corrigan marked the gym with directional arrows. Students are assigned a heavy bag to use during class, while still maintaining the two-metre distancing requirements.
Four-by-five-foot squares are laid out on the floor so each boxer can skip and shadow box in their own space.
And after every session, the coaches sanitize the club — bathrooms, floors, bags.
Clubs may be open, but they are far from normal.
“There is no sparring at this point, there’s no technical sparring and no hand pads between boxers or coaches. So we’re not there yet, but we’re definitely optimistic that Boxing Ontario is working very hard to get us to that point,” said Greenlaw.
Getting back on track after three months is one thing for an established gym. But for one club in Welland, the closure came at a painful time.
Jimmy Bland moved from Toronto to Welland in January after retiring from the postal service. He opened his gym, Bland Boxing Club, Feb. 15.
Just weeks later, it shut down.
“It was heartbreaking really. I mean we were starting to develop a clientele,” said Bland, a lifetime boxer with more than 100 amateur fights on his resume.
“We really thought we were on a boom just before we closed it.”
Before reopening last week, Bland implemented Boxing Ontario’s new regulations, reducing the number of heavy bags in the gym and eliminating the boxing ring altogether.
One of the toughest changes was eliminating shared equipment, such as gloves and hand wraps.
“We try to keep our club rates down so that people can come in. And then we try to have equipment for them, for a while at least, until they know if they like the sport,” said Bland.
“But at least we can get people in. We can work them out and people have a place to come.”
Nappers Boxing Club head coach Ray Napper said the family-run Welland gym will reopen shortly, as it continues installing the new safety requirements laid out by Boxing Ontario.
“It’s just my family and I who run it, and we all have other jobs. We don’t make money off the boxing club so it’s sort of our hobby,” said Napper. “It’s a little bit different, a little bit more difficult for guys like us but we want to get our members back in the gym and back enjoying the club.”
While some boxers are hesitant to go back to class — Bland said not all his members have returned — many are excited.
“A lot of people, they’re going to be over the moon when they’re able to come down and hit the heavy bags, regardless of the different type of atmosphere it might be in,” said Napper.
Bland opened his boxing club in part to offer mental and physical support to individuals in need of an outlet. Now, more than ever, he understands how the sport can help relieve any built-up frustration and anxiety.
“Being inside all the time like this, that’s got to be a stress on your mind,” said Bland. “(People) need that kind of social thing and an activity where they can let some energy out. I think that’s important.”
Reopening remains a work in progress. Clubs are being cautious, taking it one step at a time.
They are hopeful to add additional classes and increase the number of boxers in the gym as they become more comfortable in this new reality.
“It’s a little hectic,” said Greenlaw. “It’s a learning curve for us.”
But, said Bland, at the end of the day, “it’s much better than being closed altogether.”
The nature of the sport is contact. You’re always encouraging contact. You just think we’re going to be the very, very, very last thing to open.”
BRUCE GREENLAW ST. CATHARINES BOXING CLUB COACH
More than 140 years after it made its debut, in English soccer, the whistle is the most recognizable sound in sports.
From soccer fields and football stadiums to basketball arenas and wrestling mats, from youth sports to the pros and from one continent to the next, the whistle is the thread that winds its way through global sports. It often marks the beginning and the end of an event, signals pauses and restarts in tense moments, and acts as an exclamation point after a big play. In the symphony of sport, the whistle is the soprano: crisp, distinct and capable of leaving one’s ears ringing.
But in the age of coronavirus, the whistle may face an existential challenge, or, at the very least, a serious rethinking. To use almost any whistle requires a deep breath and then a forced burst of droplet-filled air — things that, during a pandemic, deeply concern medical experts.
Is there a better way? That is what people keep asking Ron Foxcroft.
Foxcroft, a former NCAA and Olympic basketball official, is the most trusted name in North America when it comes to whistles. His company, Fox 40, sells about 15,000 a day — mostly the so-called pealess whistle, which accounts for the bulk of his business.
About a decade ago, Fox 40 also began making and marketing an electronic whistle. It operates with the push of a button and its tones can be adjusted by a switch on the side. The current versions on the market produce sounds that range from 96 to 120 decibels (or from the sound of a lawn mower to that of an ambulance siren).
It is this version that in recent months has come to dominate Foxcroft’s conversations, emails and text messages.
“There’s two questions,” Foxcroft said of the inquiries he has received in the past few months. “No. 1: ‘Ron, you’re a referee. Tell us what you think of the electronic whistle.’ No. 2: ‘We’d like to experiment with the electronic whistle. Can you send us some?’ ”
Fox 40’s version is one of a handful of models available; Windsor and iSport, among others, make their own versions. But Fox 40’s position in the industry — its clients include the NBA and the NFL and even the White House, where multiple presidents have used its whistle to start the annual Easter Egg Roll — means it has seen a surge in both inquiries and orders.
Before mid-April, the Canadian company’s largest order for electronic whistles had come from a European train company, which bought 3,000 for its employees. Since May 1, though, Foxcroft estimated, the company had received orders for about 50,000 more. Most are headed to sports officials.
Many of the referees who receive them will be trying one for the first time. Verne Harris, a Division I men’s basketball official for the past 32 years, said in an interview that he did not know the electronic whistle existed until this spring. But during his coronavirus-imposed refereeing hiatus, he said, he has been pondering what changes might be coming to the profession.
“I didn’t really think of anything that would be an alternative, but I was like, ‘How in the world?’ ” Harris said of the conundrum of reducing transmission risks during games. “The minute they touch the ball and then we touch the ball and then we kick it out and turn around and put the whistle in our mouth.
“And when you blow on the whistle,” he added, “then all of those particles are coming out into the air.”
Some leagues are making plans to use them. Hockey Quebec, the governing body for the sport in the province, recently included the mandatory use of electronic whistles by referees and coaches in its protocols for a return to play. And the NCAA’s chief medical officer this spring raised the idea that game officials be included — along with trainers and some coaches — in the group of people required to wear masks at games.
While the push-button whistle, which looks a bit like a small flashlight, certainly addresses some virus fears, head-to-head comparisons with the sounds of more traditional whistles can sometimes be unsatisfying. And in interviews over the past several weeks, veteran referees raised more practical concerns.
“Are they weatherproof? Do they work in the snow? Do they work in the rain? You know, those sorts of things,” said Steve Shaw, the national co-ordinator of officials and secretary rules editor for college football, who tried out Fox’s electronic whistle in May. “And do we have to carry a spare battery around with us?”
Shaw said he thought the electronic whistle could be a good alternative if sports officials determined that referees should shift away from traditional models. But the most difficult part in using the new whistle is just that, Shaw explained: using it. He and several other officials interviewed raised concerns about what is considered to be one of the graver sins in their job: the inadvertent whistle. “We have that momentary time lag between taking your whistle from your hand to your mouth, and that little instance sometimes can save you from blowing an inadvertent whistle,” Shaw said. “And this has none of that kind of delay built into it because it’s right there in your hands. And right there, your thumb is on the button. So we’d have to really talk through being patient.”
Eppley added: “I can see, maybe, a lot of inadvertent whistles where people are just running up and down the court and you’ve got this thing in your hand and you just inadvertently touch the button.” He called it a challenge of “whistle discipline.”
For now, the bigger challenge may be educating the experts tasked with making decisions regarding the return of sports about the electronic whistle’s existence.
Brian Hainline, the chief medical officer of the NCAA, said in an interview that he had suggested during a conference call in May that officials might be among those, including coaches and trainers, who need to wear masks until the pandemic is over.
But upon learning about the electronic whistle, he became a quick convert.
“I hadn’t thought of this, but the idea of this electronic whistle, it actually solves a lot of problems,” Hainline said. “It’s a brilliant idea, in my opinion.”