SOSSA cancels winter championships
For the second straight year, the ongoing pandemic has forced the cancellation of the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association’s winter sports championships.
The move comes on the heels of last week’s decision by the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations to cancel its winter championships.
The decision was made by the SOSSA’s executive members, who voted by email.
“It needs a two-thirds (majority) and it easily got that,” said Brian Fuller, SOSSA’s executive administrative director.
The decision was made for a number of reasons.
“At this point, the Ministry of Education hasn’t even approved high school basketball and hockey and we can’t suggest we are going we are going to run championships when these sports might not even get going,” Fuller said. “We have been doing this for two years now, abiding by everybody else’s decisions because we have very little decision-making powers now in any of this.”
With volleyball and some of the other sports set to resume play locally, if the association were to stick with SOSSA deadlines, the leagues could only run for a couple more weeks before having playdowns to decide who advances to SOSSA.
“As soon as you start playdowns, you start eliminating teams and you start eliminating kids chances of participating,” Fuller said. “I think OFSAA felt that way too.”
With consultation with the athletic coordinators, it was felt more participation could be provided for more kids by cancelling SOSSA championships.
“I am not going to speak for them but my inkling is that they can now extend the winter season beyond mid February and they could extend it to the March Break if they wanted to and play three and a half extra weeks of two games a week,” Fuller said. “It would give every single kid and every single school six or seven more games.”
Last week, OFSAA announced it was hoping to run its spring championships and that feeling is echoed by SOSSA.
“We have convenors and everybody in place and SOSSA is ready to go,” he said. “The spring sports have suffered the most because when COVID hit two years ago the only championships that were cancelled were spring ones. We are really hoping the spring works and we can go ahead.”
Among local SOSSA championships impacted by the cancellation were: the senior girls A, AA and AAA volleyball championships at Brebeuf, Governor Simcoe and Sir Winston Churchill; the girls A/AA and AAA hockey championships hosted by Lakeshore Catholic and Blessed Trinity; the boys junior A basketball championship at Brebeuf; the boys senior A basketball championship at Niagara Christian; the boys senior AA basketball championship at Niagara Christian; the boys A/AA and AAA hockey championships hosted by Saint Francis and Denis Morris; and, the boys and girls curling championships schedule for the Niagara Falls Curling Club.
The Niagara Catholic Athletic Association has yet to announce a return to play plan but the Niagara Region High School Athletic Association announced practices for all the winter term sports were allowed to resume Jan. 31 but high contact sports such as basketball and hockey must try and minimize contact and instead emphasize skills and drills. Low- or no-contact sports such as curling and volleyball are allowed to resume league play starting Feb. 7.
