`Just rip the Band-aid off': Canada West pulls the plug
It's final: The Canada West Conference's 2020-21 season is finished.
Finally.
While it's not the decision athletes and coaches necessarily wanted to hear, at least a decision was reached Thursday, with Canwest, Ontario University Athletics and Reseau du Sport Etudiant du Quebec shutting the door on any chance of varsity sports schedules over the school year.
And while Atlantic University Sport is holding onto hope that low numbers of COVID-19 cases in the Maritimes will allow them to reach a different decision by mid-november, the overarching U- Sports body cancelled all national championships this season.
“I'll be honest, we've been expecting this announcement for a long time,” said Macewan University Griffins women's volleyball head coach Ken Briggs. “Basically since the summer, as things evolved and just the way things were playing out. I'm involved with Volleyball Alberta too, and we're dealing with it at the club level.
“It almost came to a point where, I heard the quote this morning, just rip the Band-aid off. The constant wait a little longer, wait a little longer; things aren't going to drastically change, I don't think, one way or the other as far as COVID is concerned. So, we kind of knew the inevitable, and the biggest thing is health and safety, for sure. This makes total sense.”
Canada West is still considering holding conference championships in track and field, curling and swimming, after initially cancelling on June 8 all sports activities for the current fall semester. That had left hockey, volleyball and basketball with the potential for running shortened schedules beginning in January.
But now, the only option they are left with next year is forming regional cohorts for exhibition games.
“I'm sure this year those things are going to happen,” said Briggs. “I know some of the sports in some of the provinces have already started that, and I think they're a bit ahead of Alberta right now.
“Now we're clinging to that.” Which is better, in a sense, than waiting around for what might be.
“I don't want to say relief is the right word,” Briggs said. “But, it's like, `OK, there's a decision finally.'”
And obviously the right one, given the challenges some college conferences are dealing with while trying to operate south of the border.
“For sure. And it's been frustrating for everybody watching across Canada as different places do this. They're active, they're trying to start,” Briggs said. “Week by week, we learn a little more, we understand the situation we're in.
“We can't prevent COVID. Our job is to stop the spread of it.”
But that doesn't make losing an entire year any easier to take for athletes, especially the ones on Briggs' team, who are coming off their first playoff appearance since making the jump to U- Sports six years earlier.
“It's really, really tough,” said Briggs, pointing to those at the beginning or the end of their collegiate careers. “I remember talking about mental health earlier, and now I'm serious, it is definitely the biggest factor. And not only them, I'm communicating with my fellow coaches every day and we feel the same way.”
The Griffins have yet to begin practising.
Across the river, the University of Alberta Golden Bears and Pandas varsity programs had pulled out of the 2020-21 Canwest schedule back on June 18, due to a combination of coronavirus questions and financial challenges.