YOUTH SPORTS & COVID-19: Competition — and lack thereof

It’s a Friday night in February and the South Kamloops Secondary Titans Junior Girls basketball is hosting the Merritt Panthers. Two years ago, the bleachers in the South Kam gym would have been populated by friends and family. However, in 2022, pandemic restrictions mean no spectators at games.

“We’ve managed to get games in,” Coach Del Komarniski explains. “That’s been a heck of a lot better than last year when there was nothing.”

In some sports, restrictions implemented in response to increased COVID-19 infections limited competition for many young athletes. High school basketball, which is traditionally a fall and winter sport, lost an entire season of competition.

“Basketball is some way where a lot of us can escape and just, like, be ourselves,” Kiana Kaczur, a Grade 10 point guard from SKSS says. “We couldn’t really express ourselves in games, that way.”

Kamloops Minor Hockey’s U13 girl’s rep team was in the same situation.

“We went into our season with big plans,” coach Mike Brown points out. “We did 84 practices. 84 practices — I think we had three games at the start of the season and then got shut down.”

Many athletes have missed out on an entire year of competition. For sports like hockey and basketball, athletes had an entire year to work on individual skills.

“We had to wear masks and stay a bit distanced, so we did lots of individual skills,” SKSS Jr Girls co-captain Kylee Koppes says. “This year, we’ve been able to do more game stuff, and like, as a team, learn offences and defences and stuff like that.”

For athletes who compete as part of a team, opportunities to improve have been there throughout the pandemic. From a coach’s perspective, a full year of skill development is a rare opportunity.

“As a coach, I enjoy practices more than I enjoy games,” Komarniski says. “Selfishly, for me, my enjoyment levels have been quite high, because it’s a lot of practising and not a lot of games.”

However, athletes who compete in individual sports, like swimming, build training schedules around the competition cycle.

“Each racing experience is like an opportunity for learning and to develop your race strategy so you can become a better athlete or racer,” Kamloops Classic Swimming head coach Brad Dalke explains.

17-year-old swimmer Jake Gysel was ready to take that next step in his athletic journey, the 2020 National Junior Championships. Like so many other competitions, that was cancelled, along with all of Jake’s training

.“I didn’t have anything to train for, which meant I wasn’t giving it my all and I was training inside my comfort zone,” Gysel explains. “That following year, without competitions, I really started to hate swimming.”

As infection rates fell late in the fall of 2021, some competition was reinstated, which allowed the Kamloops Classics to race. That opportunity gave Gysel the internal motivation to come back to the pool with a renewed passion.

“Ever since that November, I’ve been training harder than ever before,” Jake says. “I love the sport again.”

“Whether you’re in swimming, soccer, basketball, gymnastics, or hockey, it’s about the athlete believing in themselves,” Dalke explains. “Part of that believing in themself is actually seeing themself do it in a stressful competition situation.”

Thankfully, competition is back.

For Kamloops Classics Swimming, provincial championships and national trials are just around the corner.

The U13 girl’s hockey team hosts provincials later this month.

The South Kam Junior Girls made it all the way to the Championship game of the provincial championships, before losing to a very strong team from Seaquam Secondary.

However, for these athletes, missing out on a full year of competition and the opportunities that come with it could be felt for years to come.

by Adam Donnelly

YOUTH SPORTS & COVID-19: Competition — and lack thereof

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