Image credit: Canada West

By Earl Seitz

Canada West

Canada West delays second term sports decision.

Oct 2, 2020 | 10:58 AM

KAMLOOPS — Canada West won’t make a decision on second term competition for another month — delayed until November 2.

The initial deadline for a decision was next Thursday, October 8.

Today’s announcement pertains to second term sports basketball, volleyball and swimming at Thompson Rivers University.

TRU Athletic Director Curtis Atkinson, who sits on the Canada West Board of Directors, says the decision to delay by a month a decision on second term conference competition came after feedback from student-athletes.

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“I think buying time is a good thing right now.” says Atkinson. “That’s what this decision has given us the opportunity to do — make sure that we’re being diligent with the COVID task force and the reporting that they’re doing.”

The delay also gives the sport committee in Canada West more time to look at all of the options if sports like basketball and volleyball are able to return to conference play in January.

“We know it will be more regional in nature. There would be fewer games obviously. So that work continues behind the scenes — the COVID task force will really be committed to looking first and foremost at the health and safety of all the people involved. Can we execute in a way that insures health and safety. There will be a financial component with that as well — obviously the scheduling piece will be built into that as well, so there are several layers to it.”

The term fluid situation has been used many times in different leagues and sports to describe the ongoing nature of the situation.

For the athletic department at TRU it’s meant win some, lose some when it comes to financial sustanabilty .

“A lot of things that happened this summer that hurt.” says Atkinson. This fall we weren’t able to do our fund raising breakfast, which is our biggest scholarship fund raiser. We were fortunate that we delayed out golf tournament, and got into a position where we could run our golf day and make some scholarship money there. I’ve been amazed by the community. I think everyone knows Kamloops is a sports town and when we ran our golf day we saw amazing support with that event.”

But for now competition is at a standstill, and Atkinson says the impact of that is tough on the student athletes.

“There have been a lot of sleepless nights for a lot of people. Look at those first year student athletes who have this dream of coming to university — I think about our graduating student athletes and this may have been there last shot at it, and now might not have the opportunity at least not in the same way. I’m very confident in the Canada West board — that we’ll make the decisions that are the best decisions in the interest of student athletes and being able to move forward in a productive way — we have to make sure we’re thinking about the sustainability of Canada West sport and what that’s going to look like in the future.”