Fans looking to watch U of R Cougar hockey, volleyball or basketball will have to wait until next season.
On Thursday, U Sports, the governing body for national championships, announced a decision to cancel all remaining 2020-2021 national championships with Canada West soon following with a release stating no Canada West conference regular season, playoff or championship events will be held with decisions on championships in curling, track and field and swimming being deferred to a later date.
The announcement comes more than two weeks ahead of what was supposed to be a November 2 decision date. That date had been pushed back from October 8 after student-athletes and member schools asked for an extension.
In a press release from Canada West, they state their reasons for doing this now are:
• ensuring the health and safety of student-athletes and others;
• rising case numbers across portions of Western Canada, particularly in the age group of university students;
• continued inter-provincial travel restrictions imposed by provincial health authorities;
• financial impediments to traditional conference competition due to COVID-19 mitigation protocols, including heightened travel costs.
“This isn’t the outcome any of us wanted, however, it has become increasingly clear over the last few weeks that the environment wasn’t going to change sufficiently to ensure safe competition in traditional conference formats in these sports,” Canada West president Clint Hamilton said. “Ultimately, our members saw no feasible path to staging traditional Canada West conference events during the 2020-21 season in these sports. With today’s decision our members have opted to provide clarity to our stakeholders, most importantly our student-athletes.
