5 Sask. university sports teams see upcoming season wiped out

Five university sports teams in Saskatchewan received word on Monday their upcoming seasons have been cancelled.

Canada West announced that there will be no athletic competitions held this fall.

It means the University of Saskatchewan football team, as well as its men's and women's soccer programs, will not play this season — and neither will the University of Regina football and women's soccer teams.

Mark McConkey, the interim head coach of the U of R Rams football club, said he is "disappointed and frustrated."

"But this whole situation is out of my hands. It's out of the U of R's hands. It's bigger than Canada West football," he said.

"But it's hard to see that right now because I know we're so caught up in the moment and we all want to kind of get back to normal."

Fate of older players up in the air

McConkey said there had been talk of pushing the deadline to make a decision into July to get a better idea of the situation around COVID-19, but he said at least now the athletes can begin making plans for the fall.

He said while no student athlete will lose a year of eligibility in the lost season, U Sports still has to make a decision about whether it's going to relax the age cap on football players who would normally be too old to play when football does resume.

"I've heard from a lot of our fifth-year guys, our older guys, just asking, 'Hey, am I done football? Is this my last year? What's happening with the age rule in football?'" McConkey said.

Lisa Robertson, the U of R's director of sport. community engagement and athlete development, said she feels for their student athletes, specifically their football and women's soccer teams.

"There's finality to the decision for them today and that hurts," she said.

She said the news was "devastating" for the university's student athletes and coaches.

"Our coaches are professional coaches and they give a lot to their sport and their student athletes," she said. "And so this, for them, today is a very difficult day."

Schools prepared to honour scholarships

She said U Sports has changed its policy to allow scholarships to be given in this no season situation and the U of R is committed to honouring its scholarship commitments.

Dave Hardy, the chief athletics officer for Huskie Athletics at the U of S, said his university is prepared to do the same.

"We feel very comfortable that we will have the financial resources that would allow coaches to honour all their commitments," he said.

Hardy called Monday a "difficult day."

"A great deal of disappointment and frustration I'm sure from coaches and athletes that have hoped and planned that the announcement today might have been different," he said.

He said the U of S is committed to fully employing all of its coaches all year long. The U of R also said its permanent full-time and part-time coaching staff will be retained.

There is still a chance university hockey, volleyball and basketball will start up in January. Canada West said a decision on that will be made by October.

Todd Johnson, the head coach of the U of R Cougars men's hockey team, said his players' foremost concern is if they are going to have a season at all.

"I'm really an optimistic person. I actually never thought this would happen," he said. "I was one of the coaches going, 'You know what? We're going to play. Don't worry, we're going to play."

Worries about losing recruits

If university hockey is played in early 2021, he said he hopes they won't lose too many recruits to other leagues or levels of hockey that might still play, even though he thinks there is a good chance they will.

"Absolutely. I mean that is a fear," he said. "We've talked about that. And we've had extensive conversations about potentially losing recruits to the AHL or the East Coast Hockey League or even to Europe."

Other conferences made similar announcements on Monday — and U Sports said fall national championships, such as the Vanier Cup, would not go ahead as scheduled.

Canada West also said there won't be rugby 15s or field hockey this coming season, adding there was no way to ensure everyone's safety during athletic competition this fall.

It said decisions on championships in golf, cross country and swimming will be made by July 15.