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By Dylana Kneeshaw

YOUTH SPORTS

Kamloops youth sports teams preparing for Feb. 1 resumption of tournaments

Jan 27, 2022 | 4:04 PM

KAMLOOPS — As of February 1, COVID-19 provincial health orders will ease to allow all child and youth sports tournaments to resume.

It’s been a season of on-and-off changes, cancellations and challenges for scheduling sports tournaments. Kamloops Minor Hockey (KMHA) will be able to host its U15 recreation tournament next month, but it’s too last minute to be able to continue with two of its U18 tournaments.

“Typically, we host about 20 tournaments a year,” explains KMHA Tournament Coordinator Rob Fryer. “Last I looked I think we’re at about half of that this year. It’s a significant hit financially for the association.”

While the association misses out on thousands of dollars of revenue each time it cannot host a tournament, Fryer notes the city also loses out on the trickle-down benefits from visiting teams and their families.

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“The restaurants, the hotels, the sports stores, the shopping. Some of them might go up and visit Sun Peaks if they have a delay in their games,” he adds. “There’s a lot of different areas of our community that are affected by not having a tournament.”

For athletics at the secondary school level, South Kamloops Secondary School Athletics Director Corey Yamaoka says the school is awaiting word from BC School Sports on whether the Ministry of Health will allow high school sports to expand from the single-team competitions.

“It means we’ll be able to see a lot more teams. We’ve been sort of seeing the same teams within the Okanagan and within the city here over the last month. It’d be nice to see some different competition from the coast and even from the Okanagan, too.”

Should high school tournaments be given the okay, Kamloops teams will be able to set their sights on provincial basketball championships in the beginning of March.

“What we’re hoping is that we’ll be able to run our West Zone playoffs, and those West Zone playoff champions will be able to go to Okanagan Champions, who will eventually hopefully be able to qualify for provincials in March,” says Yamaoka.

Scheduling has been hectic, but youth sports organizations are looking forward to the easement of restrictions. Upcoming tournaments in February and March mean teams can finish out their seasons will some semblance of normalcy.

“There’s a lot of re-jigging of the schedule and trying to find ice and whatnot so it’s been a challenging year scheduling-wise for sure,” reiterates Fryer.

For more information around current provincial health orders and restrictions, click here.