The Prairie Gold Lacrosse League became the latest sports organization to bring an end to their campaign due to COVID-19 on Tuesday, officially announcing that their regular season and playoffs had been cancelled.
The eight-team senior league includes the Moose Jaw Chiefs, with a six-team junior league also seeing action in a normal year.
Action would have begun in late-April, with the regular season running until mid-June and the playoffs following immediately after.
In a statement released on Facebook, the PGLL pointed to four major factors in their decision, and they’ll be familiar to anyone following the coronavirus outbreak:
- Unknowns surrounding the opening of indoor facilities;
- A lack of training preparation for the season;
- As a contact sport, there being no guidelines in place from the province as to how games may be played.
- Provincial restrictions on travel and competition between teams.
“However, we understand that each member association still can have the right to play amongst themselves, which the PGLL encourages, so that players still get some lacrosse in this year,” the statement said. “If there is a possibility of lacrosse occurrence during the out-of-season months, the PGLL would endorse any SLA-sanctioned events.”
The Chiefs finished last season with a 5-4-1 record, good enough for fourth place, before running into the undefeated Saskatoon Brewers in the first round of the playoffs and falling 18-8.
The Brewers would go on to defeat the Regina Heat 23-4 in the PGLL championship final.
