Riders look to end Winnipeg blues in CFL West final
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The Riders are 0-8 in their last eight trips to Winnipeg.
Saskatchewan’s two universities believe the upcoming changes to Canada West sports schedules are crucial due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conference held its annual general meeting Tuesday and determined that scheduling changes would have to be made to help lessen the financial burden if sports are able to return in 2020.
This includes shorter seasons for sports in which there are fewer programs such as hockey and football, while sports with a larger team pool will have regional-based scheduling.
“It would accomplish a later start due to the province’s different plans to return to regular activities and each province has independent plans so we needed to address the potential of a late start,” said Lisa Robertson, the director of sport, community engagement and athlete development at the University of Regina.
“We also needed to address the financial issues that are already impacting our universities and specifically the financial impacts it has around athletic programs at those universities.”
Due to classes going online and universities closing their doors temporarily across the country due to COVID-19, programs are dealing with tough financial situations.
“We are in an unprecedented time and I feel for our student-athletes because we aren’t able to give them answers right away because the situation with COVID is changing quite quickly,” Robertson said.
While other university athletics programs were facing financial difficulties before the pandemic hit, Robertson said the U of R wasn’t one of those schools.
“Am I concerned? Do we have to look at new ways of doing things? Absolutely. Am I in a panic mode right now? Absolutely not. I think our cuts in the past have put us in a position of a little bit of greater sustainability but we’re in uncharted territories. We don’t know how long this is going to last,” Robertson said.
David Hardy, the chief athletics officer at the University of Saskatchewan, said the U of S was also in good shape before the pandemic hit.
“At the University of Saskatchewan we rely very heavily on ticket sales to support athletics and we’ve been very fortunate, especially in the fall sport of football and the winter sport of hockey, to draw very well so we went into this with good shape showing a surplus heading into this next year before COVID-19 hit us all,” he said.
Hardy said the plan is for the university to participate in all sports it had competed in during the 2019-20 season.
He said if sports begin to get suspended or cancelled, it raises problems when it comes to recruiting and eligibility issues.
“There’s a myriad of challenges out there if there was to be a suspension of all or some of our sports seasons,” he said. “The real challenge is for the student-athletes and the uncertainty that they face. Those folks have to be kept first and foremost in all of our plannings.”
U Sports, the governing body of all Canadian university athletics, would determine how a student’s athletic eligibility would be affected by a loss of a season.
Robertson said Canada West faces a unique challenge in that the conference spans four provinces.
“We are in a very expensive league to run because we have to get over the mountains to compete with some of our B.C. schools and that’s expensive,” she said.
With so many uncertainties surrounding the various 2020 seasons, Hardy said it’s important athletes are made aware of any changes in information related to the upcoming seasons.
“Those folks are looking for answers and our biggest asset with that is our coaches,” he said. “They’re the ones that are maintaining contact with the student-athletes through a variety of virtual platforms.”