Parents won't be allowed to watch their kids practice during an indoor sport for the next month (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

INTERIOR SPORTS RESTRICTIONS

‘It’s a very difficult pill to swallow’: Kamloops councillor feels Interior sports restrictions unfair

Aug 25, 2021 | 6:05 PM

KAMLOOPS — A Kamloops city council is frustrated and disappointment the B.C. Interior is being targeted in the latest sporting restrictions.

Mike O’Reilly feels it’s unfair for the province to restrict competition in the Interior only. He notes the cancellation of a 170-team slo-pitch event in the next week should not be happening.

“When we get word a week and a half before an event we were hosting with 170 teams from across Canada that were going to be here that it’s cancelled and wouldn’t be allowed to happen in Kamloops — yet that same event could happen in Prince George, Chilliwack, Vancouver, Nanaimo — that makes it very frustrating and difficult for us,” noted O’Reilly.

The City of Kamloops says there have been 10 sporting events so far cancelled following the sports crackdown that is expected to be re-evaluated at the end of September.

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As part of the new restrictions in the Interior exclusively, parents are also not allowed to watch their kids practice indoors — something that doesn’t sit well with O’Reilly either.

“It’s a very difficult pill to swallow,” he said. “We know that the variants are going to change over time. What’s not going to change is the 12,000 sq. ft. footprint of a hockey rink. To me, a blanket restriction was acceptable a year and a half ago, but we’ve learned a lot, we need to find a more surgical approach that allows 50 people to go inside a 12,000 sq. ft. building to watch their children practice at a hockey event.”