But not only is there a light at the end of the tunnel for the local youth sports organization, it’s a train blazing down the tracks with almost infinite speed, making it only a matter of time -- literally -- before they’re back on the field.
The original plan put together back in February was to see a highly modified high school season featuring six or seven teams taking the field for a six-game campaign beginning in mid-April at the earliest. Other deadlines for a start were May 3 and May 17, but with the current set of provincial pandemic restrictions setting a start of mid-June at the earliest, MJKMF decided to shut the whole plan down.
“Obviously being pushed back to June we just decided it was never going to work competition-wise,” said president Bryan Boys. “So we discussed doing some of the training and it’s debatable what might happen there, but everything else is kind of on the move. We did a field clean-up (Saturday) and we’re getting ready to open up registration on the 15th.”
Making things all the more difficult was how the prospective league had been embraced: teams from Yorkton, Estevan, Swift Current and Weyburn had all put together teams and had coaching staffs, as did Moose Jaw. Basically, if the word was given, things would have hit the ground running.
“We even had a Shaunavon team that had enough players and that would have been cool, but with the variants and everything we just knew it wasn’t going to happen,” Boys said, adding that it was only a short time after they made the decision the provincial government came out with their three-step vaccination and re-opening plan.
While there won’t be a league, there is a carrot dangling that might lead to opportunity. Boys suggested that if things do re-open as planned at the end of June, MJKMF might put together something similar to the summer Selects program and hold a jamboree of sorts, even renting out Mosaic Stadium in Regina and holding a massive tournament.
“So there are some other ideas where if things progress we might go after them, but right now we’re just stuck in that wait and see,” Boy said. “We’re watching closely and if things improve we’re going to jump back into a meeting and try and make something happen if we can.”
The most positive news comes out of the fact that by the time the league is ready to kick off their regular season at the regular time in late August, COVID-19 will almost certainly be long in our rearview mirror.
To that end, the aforementioned registration. Early bird will start on May 15th and wrap up on June 15, followed by main registration ending July 31. The second week of August will see equipment being handed out, and practices will start in the third week of August.
“We’re really positive about fall football, we don’t have any concerns like we had in the last year… it’ll be great to get some fans in the stands and have those Friday Night Football games rocking, it’ll be awesome,” Boys said.
