Basketball teams across the greater Moncton area are having to jump through hoops to find a place to play.
“Trying to get gym times across the city has been very challenging,” said Tim Wallace, interim president of the Moncton Minor Basketball Association.
A spokesperson for the Anglophone East School District says community groups are no longer able to use school facilities under the province’s return-to-school COVID-19 regulations.
In an email, Stephanie Patterson said that any change to that policy is “not currently being considered.”
She said the district continues to follow the directions of New Brunswick public health and the province’s Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
“They have to follow their policies and rules and we certainly respect that,” said Wallace.
But Wallace says the situation is creating a hardship for groups like Moncton minor basketball, which he said is now having to rent community space at a higher cost.
“The bottom line is that costs go up and these are unexpected costs without trying to put them back onto the families,” he said.
He said the association board is trying not to increase its player fees because basketball has always been an accessible sport, especially for lower-income families, and they want to keep it that way.
“We have 770 kids in that ballpark signed up for Moncton basketball association this year,” he said.
But with enrolment up amid the pandemic, Matt Dixon, a coach for the Riverview Minor Basketball Association, said booking time has been a struggle.
“A lot of the different organizations are, I guess you could say, fighting for gym spots,” said Dixon.
He said there simply isn’t enough community space to properly accommodate everyone.
“One of the hardships for my team, in particular, is the late nights that we sometimes have to take in terms of the practising because those are the only times that we have available to us,” he said.
Dixon, who’s also vice-principal at Riverview East School, says he supports the province’s call to close off community access.
“Our first priority is safety for our students,” said Dixon.
But the adjustment, he said, has also been rough on the players, who right now are following strict COVID-19 protocol on the courts they do manage to book, with some teams having yet to play a single game.
“I talk to students all the time about how much they miss the game and how much some of them want to just get out and play,” said Dixon.
“We understand the importance that sport and physical activity play in the well-being of individuals and the community, especially during these unsettling times during the pandemic,” stated Danielle Elliott, acting director of communications for the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Elliott said the province’s “top priority” is ensuring the school environment remains healthy and safe for students and that “community groups should not expect any access to school facilities any earlier than January 2021.”
If and when that access is permitted, she said community groups will be required to follow any health and safety guidelines provided by Public Health and should be prepared that additional costs may be associated with services as a result of the enhanced cleaning protocols required for operations to resume.
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