Plans are well under way for the resumption of a number of high school sports in the metro St. John’s region, specifically hockey, soccer, volleyball and rugby.
High school hockey is expected to open a new season in the next couple of weeks. Likewise boys’ and girls’ rugby. Soccer and volleyball tryouts are currently ongoing in various schools.
Softball recently clewed up a St. John’s metro regional championship.
No word, however, on the resumption of another popular winter high school sport. While there are competitive St. John’s ‘B’ level leagues for boys’ and girls’ high school basketball teams, there are no such ‘A’ level leagues. Rather, the ‘A’ level boys’ and girls’ squads play a number of tournaments throughout the season, with most of the teams playing host to their own event.
However, everything with regards to high school basketball is currently on hold, including league and tournament play. The last communication from the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District, on Oct. 6, was the announcement of the reintroduction of volleyball as a school-based extracurricular activity.
“We know our sport is safe to play, and we’ve been given the green light by public health to play."
One of the largest tournaments on the high school basketball calendar is the Keith Keating Memorial. The 2019 Keating tournament raised $24,000, the majority of which went to the new Dr. H. Bliss Murphy Chemotherapy Centre, with a portion to Camp Delight for children battling cancer.
This year’s Keating event, said organizer Adam Keating, has been cancelled.
“Everything is up in this air this season,” said Holy Heart Highlanders co-coach Dave D’Entremont. “We can’t even get into the gyms.”
Newfoundland and Labrador Basketball Association executive director Judy Byrne said her association understands why the English School District is taking its time reintroducing some sports.
Volleyball is a non-contact sport. However, both rugby and hockey had been re-introduced.
“We know our sport is safe to play, and we’ve been given the green light by public health to play.
“This is an English School District piece,” she said. “Right now, I’m pretty sure all sports could be played if we went through the public health guidelines.”
Byrne also said the resumption of volleyball aligns with the School Sports Newfoundland and Labrador calendar. In other words, volleyball usually kicks off before the basketball season.
“We would be after Christmas,” she said. “But not a lot of information is being passed down. We learned of that (volleyball’s reintroduction into high school sports) just as everybody else did, which was a bit frustrating.”
D’Entremont is trying to take a glass-is-half-full view of volleyball’s start-up.
“We look at it as a positive sign, actually,” he said. “If that sport is permitted, and there are no problems, I can only think the English School District will follow suit and allow basketball. We only see it as a positive to get back in the gym.”
