Hello Everyone,
I think we all knew this was coming, but now it’s official. BC School Sports has officially cancelled the Spring Season of Play in all schools for this year. Attached is a memo from Jordan Abney, the Executive Director of BC School Sports.
In addition, our Scholarship Chair, Ian McPhee has asked me to pass along a note that obviously, without either a season or a provincial championship taking place this year, the BCSSRU will not be awarding any scholarships this season. Of course, once life, school and sports all return to normal, and we all can’t wait for that, we will be delighted to do so again.
Finally, as mentioned in Jordan Abney’s memo, it’s important to note that a controversial new governance proposal for BC School Sports has been put on hold for now. Essentially, the proposal would centralize a great deal of authority, if not all of it, from all the existing 19 member Sport Commissions, and I can tell you in the over 10 years I have volunteered with the BC Secondary Schools Rugby Union, I have never seen so many different sports such as basketball, football, soccer, rugby and so on agree so strongly about how wrong and impractical that would be.
So, as it stands, there will be a virtual BC School Sports AGM sometime in June, but the critical issue of what the future of all high school sports looks like going forward has been postponed for now. At the appropriate time, when we are all dealing with far less serious issues than we are today, I will be sending all of you more details about that.
For now, sadly, the main news is that there will not be a Provincial Championship for BC High School Boys Rugby for the first time since the strike-shortened year of 1987, but that is to be expected.
Please take care, and take care of those you know who may need support at this time.
Walt
Walter van Halst
Commissioner, BCSSRU