Student athletes across Atlantic Canada will see the return of competition in their respective varsity sports this season after a year benched by COVID-19.
It is welcome news to students who are now back on campus.
“Last year was tough, honestly,” says Matt Croft – a swimmer at the University of New Brunswick.
Starting his sophomore year at the school as team captain, Croft says the team spent the 2020-21 season training – with post-secondary sports sidelined Canadawide.
“We’re all probably now in the best shape we’ve ever been,” he says.
READ MORE: Game on! Atlantic University Sport announces plan for full return to sports this fall
Atlantic University Sport (AUS) confirmed plans for the step back towards normal earlier in the summer but, now that classes are back, Croft says it’s finally starting to feel real.
“This is going to be, in my head, the start of my university swimming career,” says Croft.
He’s also looking at a full slate of in-person classes, when his first year saw them all held virtually.
At UNB’s Fredericton campus, student athletes were some of the only students actually present last year.
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“It’s so refreshing to think today I’ll be going into classes and be able to meet some of my peers,” Croft says.
The UNB Reds swim team already has a host of competitions on their schedule for the months ahead – including travel to schools in Nova Scotia and to a tournament in Newfoundland in February.
St. John’s-based epidemiologist Susanne Gulliver wonders if these steps towards a normal season might be too much too soon.
“We’re actually in one of the more dangerous times in this pandemic,” Gulliver says, “because we have people who are asymptomatic walking around spreading it.”
She says vaccinated student athletes could pass COVID-19 onto one another without ever knowing they had it in the first place, coming home from competition with more than just a trophy.
“It’s going to end up being a problem because they’ll spread it to the unvaccinated, like kids, and it’ll burn through the schools,” she says.
In that province, a sporting event was one of the triggers of a sweeping outbreak in the spring.
READ MORE: In Newfoundland and Labrador, three ingredients made for explosive COVID-19 outbreak (March 7)
AUS Executive Director Phil Currie says while their optimistic, the organization is being realistic.
“This will obviously be contingent upon the most up-to-date public health directives,” he says in a written statement.
Meantime Croft is mostly just optimistic.
“This is what we’ve been training for … We’re going for gold.”
The UNB Reds will swim at the Jack Scholz Invitational in Wolfville, N.S., in October.
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