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| Nick Summach (#62) leads a running play downfield for the Huskies. |
On Thursday, TSN broadcaster Farhan Lalji reported over
Twitter that U Sports had voted against extending the age cap rule for football
by a year due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. That initial tweet caused
a surge of stories to come out of various media outlets in the mainstream and
non-mainstream.
University of Alberta Golden Bears head coach Chris Morris
stepped down as the head of both a university football coaches’ committee and a
technical subcommittee over this move.
Of course, this became a big story in U Sports circles,
because back on June 8, U Sports cancelled all its fall national championships
due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The football cancellation included the Vanier Cup national
title game and the semifinal contests in the Mitchell Bowl and Uteck Bowl. The
Vanier Cup had been contested in every year starting with 1965.
The Reseau du sport etudiant du Quebec (RSEQ) is the only
conference under the U Sports umbrella holding out hope of having a regular
season in football in the 2020-21 campaign.
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| Colton Klassen heads up field for the Huskies. |
Back on June 8, U Sports said student-athletes without U
Sports national championships this season will not be charged eligibility and
will remain eligible for athletic scholarships. At the time, there was no word
regarding the age cap for football.
Under the age cap rule, players who turn 25 before Sept. 1
age out of U Sports football. Football players have seven years to complete
their five years of eligibility in U Sports upon graduating from high school.
Any player who would have gone into their final year of
eligibility for U Sports football in the cancelled 2020 season will see their
career come to an end. According to U Sports, this affects approximately 300
out of 2,335 athletes.
On top of that, a large number of veteran players will also
lose a year of eligibility under this decision.
While discussions have come up regarding concerns of more
physically mature older athletes going up against younger not as physically
mature recent high school graduates, all that talk takes away from the issue in
the current day.
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| Yol Piok heads downfield after a big catch for the Huskies |
When U Sports does resume action after the pandemic, it will
be in a rebuilding state. That goes for all sports operating under the U Sports
umbrella.
On the football side, you don’t want to be casting aside
veteran players, who could help trigger name recognition whenever action
resumes.
At the moment, the University of Saskatchewan Huskies
football team is looking at not being able to return star utility offensive
player Colton Klassen, running back Jace Peters, receiver Yol Piok, offensive
right tackle Nick Summach and receiver Joseph Trumpy.
In the CFL Draft that was held on April 30, Summach was
selected in seventh round and 57th overall by the Edmonton Eskimos.
Klassen was picked in the eighth round and 69th overall by the
Montreal Alouettes.
All five of those players are fairly well known in the
football community of Saskatoon. Klassen is one of the best known Huskies.
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| Jace Peters rumbles downfield on a run for the Huskies. |
The University of Regina Rams face the same challenges on
this front. They are looking to be without linebacker Cody Peters, who should
be able to play one more season but is going to age out.
Peters had a stellar five-year career winning five straight
CJFL titles with the venerable Saskatoon Hilltops. He was named the CJFL’s
defensive player of the year in 2018.
Before rejoining the Hilltops for his final CJFL season
2018, Peters attended training camp for the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. Following
his time with the Hilltops, Peters joined the Rams.
Peters is known in the football community in Regina and
throughout Saskatchewan.
Due to the fact there won’t be a 2020 season for U Sports
football thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, some U Sports football players will
be making critical life decisions about whether they will continue to play
football or move on to another phase of their lives.
For recruits that just graduated from high school and were
planning to join a U Sports football team as a rookie in 2020, those recruits
might ultimately decide not to play and focus on other educational or working
world opportunities.
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| Joseph Trumpy makes a big catch for the Huskies. |
On top of all that, football is the only sport under the U
Sports umbrella that has to follow an age cap rule. Just from that perspective,
it would be fair to eliminate the age cap rule and make football eligibility
mirror that of the other sports in U Sports.
When these pandemic times come to an end, it is likely you
won’t see the U Sports football teams filled with veterans in the starting
ranks who are aged 26 and 27. That was a trend in the late 1990s and early to
mid 2000s.
This time around concern has to centre on just getting the
sport of football going again just like any other sport that is governed by U
Sports.
NHL will provide good distraction if show
goes on, other notes
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| The Oilers, seen here in a 2017 pre-season game, are hub city NHL hosts. |
If the circuit can execute its return to play out in two hub
cities in Edmonton and Toronto, it will provide a good distraction for sports
fans in Canada in these COVID-19 pandemic times.
The NHL is resuming the paused 2019-20 campaign with a
24-team playoff tournament. Teams are slated to report for training camps on
July 13.
The post-season is scheduled to begin on Aug. 1 with five
games that open five different best-of-five play-in series. A total of 16 teams
are taking part in the play-in round to determine eight clubs that will advance
to the main 16-team post-season bracket.
The Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals,
Philadelphia Flyers, St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights
and Dallas Stars have been placed in the main 16-team bracket.
All of the post-season games will be played in Edmonton and
Toronto. Both the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs held off until Friday
before making official announcements that their centres would indeed be hub
cities.
That development is convenient for Canadian sports networks
that dump tonnes of resources into television coverage of these games.
Those networks don’t have to fear dealing with the COVID-19
pandemic border restrictions between Canada and the United States due to all
the post-season games being played in Canada.
Over the past couple of days, you are starting to see a
social media post two coming from fans who believe the team they support will
win the playoff tournament and capture the Stanley Cup.
If the playoffs can progress to crowning a Stanley Cup
champion, fan chatter will likely increase to the point where you won’t know
that a pandemic is indeed going on.
If the playoff tournament gets derailed by positive COVID-19
tests that results in a team or teams dropping out or the post-season not get
completed, the fans that want to watch the league for the distraction will
likely just go silent.
Critics that don’t want the NHL to jump back into action
will likely become more vocal and might even gloat over the failure.
For the moment, fans that just want to see games just to
have a distraction have something to look forward to.
- On Wednesday, Sportsnet announced it was trimming its six-stop Grand Slam of Curling circuit to just two events next season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first slam event will be the Players’ Championship set for Toronto from April 13 to 18 in 2021. The second event will be the Champions Cup set for Olds, Alta., starting on April 27, 2021 running to May 2, 2021. The Grand Slam of Curling stops are part of the World Curling Tour seasonal calendar.
- Gregg Drinnan has been doing ace work in rounding up the havoc the COVID-19 pandemic is playing on the sports world, especially in the hard hit United States, in his Taking Note blog. His round up from Friday can be found by clicking right here, and the round up from Thursday can be found by clicking right here. The amount of positive tests, postponements and cancellations keep piling up.
- On a sobering note, the United States has hit the point where just over one out of every 100 persons in that country has contracted COVID-19 at some point this year. At the time this post went live, the United States had 3,355,646 total COVID-19 cases this year for a country that has a population of just over 331,060,000. Worldwide deaths this year from COVID-19 at 567,628 at the time of this post have passed total deaths by suicide, which sit at 566,508.
- While U Sports decision to hold firm on the football age cap was disappointing for many, Dick White, who is the U Sports interim Chief Executive Officer, is still the right person to lead that sports body through these trouble current pandemic days. White has a strong passion for U Sports and has experience dealing with tough financial times as the director of athletics for the University of Regina. Like most sports bodies in Canada, U Sports is in for a tough road ahead.
- Baseball and softball got going at the house and city league levels this past week in Saskatoon. It was a great site to see various diamonds in action around the city. Many have their figures crossed that this great development continues.
If you have any
comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them
to stankssports@gmail.com.
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