The Victoria HarbourCats have begun selling single-game tickets for their West Coast League baseball season beginning at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park on June 4.
Island sports teams and event organizers are expressing confidence the accelerated vaccine timeline means that not only will there be games in the late spring through summer and fall but there will be partial or full attendance allowed.
The Tokyo Summer Olympics are going ahead, so the Olympic basketball qualifying tournament, June 29 to July 4 at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, will be required.
“We are planning for multiple scenarios, from no fans to a percentage of capacity to full capacity,” said Clint Hamilton, chair of the organizing committee
“Spectators all depends on the progress of the vaccine timeline. The protection of all involved is priority No. 1.”
Planning is also well underway for the DC Bank Victoria Open presented by the Times Colonist pro golf tournament June 3-6 at Uplands.
“We are focused on the [Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada] tour as normally conducted,” said executive director Scott Pritchard.
Whether a public gallery can follow the pros at Uplands will depend on the health guidelines in effect at the time.
Fall sports are increasingly optimistic. The pro soccer Canadian Premier League season, with Pacific FC playing at Westhills Stadium in Langford, runs through October. The current start date is May 22 but that can be adjusted, according to circumstances.
“We can delay our start to June or even into July, with a compressed, but full season,” said Pacific FC co-owner and CEO Rob Friend.
“The longer we wait, the more clarity we have. That’s why we are waiting to release our schedule.”
Friend said he believes there will be fans at Westhills Stadium this year.
“I don’t see why we can’t have full capacity in that timeline,” he said.
“I am growing more confident we will play with fans in attendance. The majority of our province will be vaccinated by then and it’s much safer outdoors. There is more risk being in a grocery store.”
Layritz Park in Saanich is scheduled to host the Canadian Little League baseball championship Aug. 5-14, with the winner advancing to the Little League World Series Aug. 19 to 29 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
“We are planning as if we are going to have a tournament season,” Steve Keener, president and CEO of Little League International, told the Associated Press this week.
It could come down to just weeks.
“If things open up in September, and we get cancelled in August, that would be a tough pill to swallow,” said Dave Potter, coach of the host Layritz team in the Canadian championship.
Whether the planned 3,000 temporary bleacher seats are installed at Layritz Park for the tournament will depend on gathering sizes allowed at that time.
Many B.C. leagues are gate-driven. The Victoria Shamrocks of the Western Lacrosse Association, scheduled to begin June 25 at The Q Centre, have said they can’t financially have a season without fans.
The Victoria Royals of the Western Hockey League are playing a bubbled 24-game season beginning next Friday in Kelowna and Kamloops. Four Island Division teams in the B.C. Hockey League will play 18 games each at Weyerhaeuser Arena in Port Alberni beginning the first week of April. It is too soon for the abbreviated WHL and BCHL seasons to allow for fans, so the teams will take a financial hit. The five WHL B.C. Division teams and 16 BCHL teams have combined to ask the provincial government for $9.5 million in pandemic relief funding but have not heard back from the province.
cdheensaw@timescolonist.com
