Ontario University Athletics (OUA) announced Friday it will return to regular season action on Feb. 9, ending a 54-day shutdown of league activities due to the spread of the Omicron variant.
Following new guidelines from the Ontario government, OUA athletes will resume training on Jan. 31. The OUA said the slate of games originally scheduled for Feb. 9 will continue as planned.
Carleton’s first day back is scheduled for Feb. 11, when the men’s and women’s basketball teams face off against the Laurentian Voyageurs on the road. The women’s hockey team will also return that day with a home game against the uOttawa Gee-Gees.
More details on the return, including championship dates, will be provided next week, the OUA said. It is unclear if the conference will reschedule or cancel Carleton’s 31 missed games and other postponed games across the OUA.
The conference originally shut down on Dec. 17, 2021, but the suspension was extended when the provincial government instituted additional COVID-19 restrictions until Jan. 27. While “elite amateur sport leagues” were permitted to continue operations, the OUA was not designated as elite.
The decision frustrated many and spawned the #OUAisElite movement on social media.
With athletes unable to train during the layoff, OUA president and CEO Gord Grace said the league would be forced to delay the restart of programming.
During the layoff, five Carleton Ravens men’s hockey players left the team to sign professional contracts. The players expressed frustration at the shutdown.
“It shows that the government and the OUA don’t really know what they have,” said defenceman C.J. Garcia, who signed with the Anglet Hormadi Pays Basque of France’s Ligue Magnus. “The OUA has produced high-level athletes in every sport that are competing in the Olympics or competing in pro sports across the world.”
In addition to the OUA, other university sport conferences across Canada paused competition. Atlantic University Sport (AUS) said it is aiming to return in mid-February, while the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) has not announced its plans after shutting down on Dec. 21, 2021.
Canada West was the only U Sports conference to continue competition, although 30 games over the past two weeks have been postponed after teams failed to have the minimum number of players available due to COVID-19 protocols.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
