Sports organizations throughout the province got some positive news when the government recently announced its “Re-opening Roadmap.
Restrictions will gradually be lifted, as in Step 2 of the plan, the current restrictions on youth and adult sports will be lifted. That means respective sport organizations like Valley Soccer Association (VSA) could play some games.
The government projects that Step 2 should be a go by the third week of June. Even though that target date is still over a month away, at least it gives VSA an idea of what its season will be like.
The Valley Soccer Association’s outdoor season usually runs in late April to the end of June.
There will be no league games this year and all of the respective town soccer clubs within VSA will just be doing social distance training in groups no larger than eight.
“It’s going to be skill development and drills, and practising basically for the entirety of the season due to the restrictions,” said VSA president Cam Houle.
“So as long as the recommendations and the COVID-19 protocols are being followed, every town and club in the Valley Soccer Association has the green light to go ahead and start their seasons.”
However, VSA is hoping to get some games in at the end of the spring season.
If everything goes as plan and Step 2 is activated by the third week of June, VSA can wrap up the season with games
“The hope is we can pull off a series of jamborees in the last couple weeks of June, which would give the kids and coaches something to look forward to and a bit of a payoff for a frustrating situation that is interfering with the regular programming and season,” said Houle.
That third week of June is only a projected date and it doesn’t necessarily mean game play can happen which does provide a challenge because if VSA were to organize those jamborees Houle said they have to start planning for them right way.
There are 12 communities that are a part of VSA and currently only one soccer club so far chose not to go forward with its respective season, by offering the training sessions for the youth.
However, Houle said there is possibility that another town can “pull the plug” on its season.
He doesn’t know exactly why that one club is not going forward with the soccer season, but he believes it was probably an unfortunate combination of multiple different scenarios. When it comes to the outdoor training sessions, Houle said mask requirement for the players on the field is only recommended. However the coaches on the field are still required to wear masks.
“Now that we’re outdoors and still social distancing, the risk is small enough that kids can participate without masks being mandatory but still recommended. And from what I’ve heard, there are kids wearing masks almost all of the time… it’s just not required,” said Houle.
Houle said it’s up to the respective soccer clubs within VSA if it is going to be a requirement to where masks on the field. He mentioned that for youth in the Warman Minor Soccer Association it is a requirement for them to wear masks while participating in the training sessions.
Houle said there is a possibility that VSA will run some soccer development camps throughout the summer, but at this point they haven’t committed to something like that because it is difficult to plan ahead during this pandemic.
Before the government came out with its “roadmap plan” VSA had already cancelled its scheduled jamborees.
“As a board we weren’t super comfortable with bringing all of these people into a tiny area for two or three days,” said Houle.
Even though it’s not an ideal season, it’s still a positive VSA is offering some sort of soccer because the entire spring season last year was cancelled.
“Any soccer we can provide is way better than being unable to provide soccer, so we’ll take whatever we can get” said Houle. “Is this a perfect situation? No. Is it a hard situation? Yes. But I choose this over no soccer.”