A strange season is shaping up for the Capilano Blues sports teams, but there is hope on the North Vancouver campus that they will be able to give their athletes something to shoot for even if the targets are continually changing.
In June the PacWest league announced that it was cancelling its competitive seasons and provincial championship tournaments for this fall, following the lead of other national and provincial post-secondary sports leagues scrambling to follow safety protocols in the era of COVID-19. That decision scuttled the 2020 PacWest soccer season and at least delayed the start of the 2020-21 volleyball and basketball seasons.
But as restrictions begin to ease on sports associations across the province, the Capilano athletic program already has its soccer teams on the field training for whatever may come this year, and the basketball and volleyball teams are hoping to hit the court to start training together in some fashion in September.
Milt Williams, the manager of athletics for Capilano University, acknowledged that the COVID-19 virus is still the ultimate schedule-maker, but he’s hoping his Blues teams can have fulfilling seasons of high level sports this year.
“The paramount thing is the health and safety of all the athletes, but we still want to give the students that student-athlete experience,” said Williams.
It’s not business as usual, but the Blues teams are assembling this fall with the hopes of playing some exhibition games in the near future and potentially resuming league play starting in January. International students on the sports team are getting ready to come back to North Van and will be rejoining their teammates after sitting out a mandatory 14-day quarantine, while Capilano University has committed to honouring all scholarships and athletic awards, said Williams.
The school’s soccer teams got the ball rolling with online training sessions this summer before progressing to physically distanced practices outdoors on campus. With the province moving into Phase 3 of its return-to-sports plan earlier this week, the Blues soccer teams are now moving to small-sided scrimmages with greater contact, and the athletic department has been in contact with other local post-secondary squads such as UBC, SFU and Trinity Western about scheduling some exhibition games once all the proper authorities have given them the green light.
Capilano’s Centre for Sport and Wellness is currently closed for COVID-19 control, but Williams is hoping that by mid-September the school’s basketball and volleyball teams will be able to get back on court together.
“Whether that’s one person to a hoop or two people to a hoop and a coach in the centre of the gymnasium barking out orders, coaching from a distance,” said Williams, “we’re hoping that we can get that soon.”
With national championship tournaments cancelled at least until the winter term in 2021, Capilano will have several more months of holding the honour of being the last school to win a CCAA national title. The Capilano men’s volleyball team was one of the last champions crowned anywhere in the world before the COVID-19 crisis fully erupted, shutting down leagues across the globe.
Williams was there as the Blues men won the national title in mid-March in Fredericton, N.B.
“There were no spectators and it was just bizarre,” he said. “It was this huge arena and there's just the two teams playing and people taking stats and myself and that was about it.”
It would be great to get to a point where the Blues could go back and defend their national title, but Williams acknowledged that there are still many hurdles remaining and questions left to answer.
“Of course if there’s an uptick in the virus, things will change quickly,” he said. “We’re really respectful of all the guidelines for COVID and we take it very seriously. It’s the students’ health and the staff and everyone’s wellbeing that we’re really trying to uphold. Hopefully we can get through this together and work it all out.”
