Saskatchewan sports screeched to a COVID halt five years ago

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Stories warning about a new “coronavirus” had been appearing in newspapers for several weeks when Saskatchewan’s sporting events started getting cancelled five years ago.

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But it wasn’t COVID-19 that caused the first cancellations. It was a contract dispute.

When the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation stopped supervising extracurricular activities to leverage its negotiations with the provincial government, the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association cancelled Hoopla, its 2020 basketball championships slated for mid-March in Regina.

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“We’ve trained our whole season for this moment to try and get to Hoopla,” said Nicole Pettigrew upon her Campbell Collegiate senior girls basketball squad earning a short-lived Hoopla berth just after her upcoming class trip to Europe was cancelled because the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a pandemic. (All quotes in this story are from Regina Leader-Post articles.)

“Everything just piled on at once. (It) was a pretty bad day.”

Then everything exploded.

It started March 11, 2020, with the NBA cancelling games because Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gobert, after mocking the virus by rubbing his hands over microphones following a media conference, became the first pro athlete to reportedly test positive for COVID-19.

Two U.S.-based Western Hockey League teams planned to play their games without spectators but the league didn’t expect to extend such precautionary measures to Saskatchewan, where the airborne virus had already appeared in a 60-year-old traveller returning from Egypt.

“At this point we have no plans for any special situations but we’re ready in the event that a position is taken by any of the health authorities or the municipalities concerned,” said WHL Commissioner Ron Robison.

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Precedent was set, but many sports were reluctant to give in. Even local health authorities downplayed the dangers.

“We all have this fear factor of COVID-19 as a new virus,” said Dr. Saqib Shahab, Saskatchewan’s chief medical health officer. “But if it was to come here, for most of us it would be just a respiratory virus that makes us sick for a few days and then we’re better.”

Within days, Shahab and Premier Scott Moe would start giving daily medical updates, listing the number of cases, recoveries and deaths in Saskatchewan related to COVID-19. Moe had been musing about calling an early election, but his government’s focus quickly turned to acquiring ventilators, implementing social-distancing restrictions and masking protocols while funding the fight against a virus that shut down businesses, schools, churches and workplaces.

Ten days in there were 52 cases in Saskatchewan; 17 days in, 176 cases and the province’s first two deaths. Her family identified Alice Grove, 75, as one of the victims.

With large gatherings not allowed, rinks were emptied as the NHL, WHL and every Hockey Canada level suspended their seasons.

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The Regina Pat Canadians were leading their best-of-five Saskatchewan Male U18 AAA Hockey League semifinal series 2-0 against the Tisdale Trojans.

“We were all set in bringing home the title,” said Pat C’s captain Cal Caragata, who was leading all playoff scorers. “We’re still going to wait and see and hopefully we’re back in a couple of weeks or even a month.

“We’ve only been drinking out of our own water bottles, washing our hands all of the time and using hand sanitizer. I’ve washed my hands more in the last couple of days than I had in the last couple of weeks.”

All other amateur sports were soon done, too, from volleyball to soccer to gymnastics to curling to the Canadian Elite Basketball League and the Western Canada Baseball League. Cities shut down their community centres, gyms closed and if anyone wanted to stay active by walking they had to abide by the one-way signs on the pathway around Regina’s Wascana Lake. The world was devoted to hand-washing and good hygiene while staying in touch via FaceTime and Zoom calls, where the most common phrase was “You’re still muted.”

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The Junos were cancelled in Saskatoon while the Globe Theatre and Regina Symphony Orchestra were shut down. There were horror stories about seniors’ residences, cruise ships and hospital surgeries. Online gaming surged with no sports to watch and the Saskatchewan Roughriders ominously closed their ticket office right about when the IOC pondered delaying the July 24 start of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Canada said it wasn’t sending teams and when other countries followed with their announcements, the Olympics were shifted to 2021.

CFL training camps, usually slated for May, were going to be postponed until July, partly because the U.S./Canada border was closed for non-essential travel.

“We realize there are more important things on Canadians’ minds right now than games of any sort,” said CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie. “But we also know Canadian football has long been a source of pride and unity for our country and — when the time is right — we can play an important role in its recovery.”

That was before Ambrosie was turned down by the Canadian government — which put in place numerous methods of financial support for struggling Canadians and businesses — on his request for a $150-million loan to offset expected losses from cancelling the league’s 2020 season.

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While the NHL, NFL, NBA and MLB all found ways to truncate or play some sort of schedule — and the WHL subsequently played 24-game slates the next season in hermetic “bubbles” — the CFL ultimately pulled the plug on 2020 and its Grey Cup game slated for Regina. The CFL ultimately shortened its 2021 season, mandated numerous safety rules and angered segments of fans by implementing vaccination policies for anyone attending games. Although vaccines appeared in late 2020, the CFL continued to be affected by COVID-19 into 2022, when a Roughriders game had to be postponed for one day because numerous players were ill from the virus.

Two months after the pandemic first hit Saskatchewan, there were worldwide efforts to re-open the world, often with strict rules about wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings. Moe announced a five-part, phase-in plan that allowed some sports to resume and partially appeased golfers who had been saddened by the Masters tournament in Augusta, Ga., being moved from April to November. Golf courses throughout Saskatchewan were allowed to open May 15.

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Golfers had to book and pay online in advance plus follow spacing protocols. Tee times were 20 minutes apart, double the normal space. There were no ball-washers or rakes, innovative inventions were created to remove balls from cups so the flagsticks weren’t touched, plus there were no lessons, driving ranges or clubhouses available to the players. Provincial parks opened for fishing, biking and hiking, plus overnight camping was allowed if protocols were followed.

It wasn’t much and there were countless coronavirus issues in the following months and seasons, but it was the start of a return to some sort of re-designed normalcy in the sports world.

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