High school rugby season is over
NSSAF kicks out rugby midway through season
SYDNEY – Hundreds of provincial high school rugby players will have to find another sport to play, at least for this season.
In a brief memo sent to principals across Nova Scotia on Thursday, the Nova Scotia School Athletic Federation informed schools they were cancelling the 2019 season, despite the year already beginning last month.
The decision to cancel the season came from the NSSAF board of governors following its recent spring meeting.
On Wednesday, an international student from Sydney Academy was injured during a game against the Glace Bay Panthers at the Cape Breton Health Recreation Complex in Sydney.
The player was airlifted to hospital in Halifax Wednesday night.
The Cape Breton Post has learned the player is doing well and is expected to be OK.
Heather Peters’ daughter was a player with the Riverview Rugrats of the Cape Breton High School Rugby League. She was devastated to hear the news of both the incident on Wednesday and the cancellation of the season.
“There’s a lot of outrage across Nova Scotia right now and this is blowing up and they’re in disbelief,” said Peters. “If you eliminate high school rugby, you’re talking the legs out from underneath them and it doesn’t make sense to me.”
Peters said Riverview athletes learned the news when they were called to the Coxheath school’s gym following lunch.
“They were told their season was over and that it might be over for good, but they weren’t quite sure,” she said. “I’m hearing that this has been something that they’ve been talking about for a little while now and that this isn’t a decision that was just made and something they’ve been considering for a while.”
The memo sent to the schools reads: “After a thorough review of incident report data provided by the School Insurance Program, the board has decided to take this action. Student safety remains the top priority of the federation.”
Greg Fraser played rugby for four seasons with the Breton Education Centre Bears during his time in high school. He was shocked to hear the news.
“It made me upset because I played the sport all through high school and I loved it,” said Fraser. “I understand you can’t have kids going out and getting hurt, but there should be more waivers that parents have to sign for their kids to be in sports like that.”
Fraser said during his playing days he never worried about getting hurt, but he has seen injuries over the years.
“If you know how to tackle, then you should know how to take a tackle,” he said. “Things happen because it’s a full-contact sport, there are chances you could get hurt and I knew that 100 per cent going into it.”
Rolanda Nason joined rugby for the first time this season and was a member of Breton Education Centre’s girls’ team, which rejoined the league this season after a seven-year absence.
“I think it’s very disappointing, I’ve become so connected with the sport already,” said Nason. “A lot of us girls are heartbroken.”
In May 2018, Brodie McCarthy of Montague Regional High School in Prince Edward Island suffered a serious head injury and was placed on life support following a high school rugby game at the David Voye Memorial Rugby Tournament in Summerside, P.E.I.
McCarthy was later taken off life support and died.
The 2018 tournament was cancelled and teams remained off the field for about a week following the incident.
The PEI School Athletic Association did not cancel the season following the incident and, as of Thursday, the rugby season was still on in P.E.I.
Jeff Romard’s daughter began playing rugby this season for Riverview and believes the decision to cancel the season is terrible.
“There’s so many other sports where kids get injured in besides rugby and they don’t really look at cancelling those sports,” said Romard. “Rugby is a game that all kids can play, and it doesn’t matter about size or shape or anything else, kids can get on the field and play this game and they’re taking this away from those kids.”
Rugby Nova Scotia released a statement on the cancellation Thursday afternoon.
The statement reads: “Obviously we are very disappointed with the decision and have requested a meeting with the NSSAF to better understand the reasoning behind their decision.”
The statement also says “this will affect thousands of students, parents, coaches, match officials and supporters.”
The Cape Breton Post contacted the Nova Scotia School Athletic Federation for comment, but a message was not returned by deadline.
The Post could not immediately reach the Cape Breton Victoria Regional Centre for Education for comment at press time. The newspaper also reached out to Sydney Academy boys head coach Ryne Piovesan via email but did not hear back at publication time.
Prior to the cancellation of the season, the Glace Bay Panthers sat first in the Cape Breton High School Rugby League girls’ standings with a 5-0-0 record, followed by Riverview (4-1-0), Sydney Academy (1-4-0) and Breton Education Centre (5-0).
In the boys’ league, Glace Bay had a 2-0 record, while Sydney Academy was 0-2. Riverview and Memorial did not field teams this season.
Peters believes the decision to cancel the rugby season will affect players hoping to get recruited for university teams.
“How are you going to get a rugby scholarship when you don’t know how to play rugby?” said Peters. “They took the game away and I don’t understand how you can eliminate a sport — it’s ridiculous — with one swipe of a pen they cancelled the season.”
Following the news, players and parents began an online petition with a goal of reaching 2,500 signatures. By later Thursday afternoon, the petition had received more than 4,500 signatures. The petition can be found by visiting https://www.change.org/p/ nssaf-bring-rugby-back-to-nsschools?recruiter=false&utm_ source=share_petition&utm_ medium=facebook&utm_ campaign=psf_combo_share_ initial&utm_term=psf_combo_ share_initial&recruited_by_ id=d270f730-6d0a-11e9-ba1773444cbc236a&utm_content=fht15288333-en-ca%3Av5.