The 2020 sports cancellations have hit hardest those athletes in their final seasons of eligibility.
The Canadian Junior Football League has responded by ruling 21- and 22-year-old players will not lose a season of eligibility because of the scrubbing of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players can play junior football until the age of 22. The ruling affects the Westshore Rebels and Vancouver Island Raiders of the sa国际传媒 Football Conference.
鈥淭hese are crucial years for these players with the CFL draft coming up for them, or U Sports offers, and this gives them an added year to put their names out there,鈥� said Rebels president Rob Lervold.
The ruling applies to 21- or 22-year-old players who were on CJFL club rosters in 2019 or as of Aug. 6 of this year. The latter is the date the 2020 season was officially called off.
Lervold noted that everyone has lost a season, not only the older players.
鈥淚t鈥檚 unfortunate for the 20 and unders to not be getting this season back,鈥� he said.
鈥淏ut how far back do you take it? We had to settle on something. For the younger players, unfortunately, there was no perfect answer for them.鈥�
The football decision follows the earlier Canadian Lacrosse Association initiative allowing juniors to play from ages 18 to 22, essentially giving this year鈥檚 graduating players another season in 2021. That affects the Victoria Junior Shamrocks and Nanaimo Junior Timbermen of the sa国际传媒 Junior A League.
U Sports athletes, including those on University of Victoria Vikes teams, will not lose a season of eligibility if their sport cannot hold a national championship in 2020-21 because of the pandemic.
It鈥檚 the same for Canadian athletes in the NCAA in 2020-21. In addition, those athletes in 2020 spring sports which had not started 鈥� such as baseball and track 鈥� will not lose that season of eligibility. But it was too late for NCAA basketball and hockey players, whose regular seasons had been completed, before the Final Four and Frozen Four were abruptly cancelled in March.
Among those victims were Micah Zandee-Hart of Saanichton, the Canadian team-projected blueliner for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, who had her senior season and career at Cornell cut short. Zandee-Hart was captain of the NCAA top-ranked Big Red before her ambitions of reaching the Frozen Four were dashed by the pandemic.
Western Hockey League and sa国际传媒 Hockey League players also had their 2020 playoff dreams shattered. Unlike football and lacrosse, junior hockey will not be giving graduating players another season. That鈥檚 because the regular season was almost complete in the WHL, which includes the Victoria Royals, and had been completed in the BCHL, which had the playoffs called off just as the Cowichan Valley Capitals and Nanaimo Clippers were preparing to meet in the Island Division final.
