Winter sports all set to start

All of Canterbury’s major winter sport seasons are set to be up and running within the next month.

Football and basketball are set to begin on June 6 and will be the first of the winter sports to take off.

Hockey is planned to have its first games on the weekend of June 13, with rugby, rugby league and netball the following weekend on June 20.

Sport Canterbury chief executive Julyan Falloon confirmed the pencilledin dates for each sports yesterday.

By July 1, all of Canterbury’s main winter sports would be up and running ‘‘in some capacity’’, Falloon said.

Netball was the sport with the most issues to consider before beginning, particularly around large gatherings at multiple courts and centres, he said.

‘‘For that reason netball may come slightly later than the rest but in an ideal world, all of our major winter sports will be up and running within the month.’’

He was hoping health and safety practices were done well to ensure sports could continue to be played.

Christchurch City Council intends to have all sports fields open and marked for this weekend, a spokesman said.

As regional sport bodies were acting on advice from Sport New Zealand, much of the community sports around the country were expected to return on roughly the same dates.

In social sport, Action Indoor Sports central city stadium manager Steve Toms said he was ‘‘hopeful’’ of a Monday reopening but was awaiting for Sport New Zealand confirmation.

Once open, the stadium would enforce guidelines including a sign-in QR code upon entry, signage and tape to mark social distances, a ‘‘players only’’ rule to combat the 100 gathering limit and a ‘‘no handshake’’ rule after games.