CALGARY – After a vote Thursday by its 17 member institutions, Canada West announced that no conference regular season, playoff, or championship events will be staged during the 2020-21 season in men's and women's basketball, volleyball, hockey and wrestling, along with women's rugby 7s.

Decisions on CW championships in curling, track and field, and swimming have been deferred as the conference further investigates the feasibility of holding those events.

Despite the cancellations, conference members – including the University of Calgary – continue to explore competitive opportunities for their student-athletes, based on the principle of regional cohort play.

"Our goal is to provide as many competitive opportunities as possible for our student-athletes in these unprecedented circumstances," said Dinos athletic director Jason Kerswill. "It became clear that it would not be feasible to continue with formal league and championship structures across four provinces, but we will work hard with our colleagues throughout Alberta to provide non-conference opportunities wherever possible in the coming months."

The conference supports members' desire to provide student-athletes with safe competition opportunities, in accordance with institutional and provincial health guidelines. These competitions will be explored on a member-by-member basis through the remainder of the 2020-21 season.

The vote came following recommendations from the CW Board of Directors, based on information provided by the CW COVID-19 Task Force comprised of CW athletic directors along with medical professionals.

Additionally, U SPORTS announced Thursday its board's decision to cancel all remaining 2020-21 national championships. The decision came after consultation with championship hosts, and was supported by all four conferences, including Canada West.

Canada West's Board and COVID-19 Task Force continued to evaluate the evolving COVID-19 environment. Ultimately the Board recommended to members that second term conference competition in basketball, volleyball, hockey, wrestling, and rugby 7s not be staged due to a host of factors, including:

• Ensuring the health and safety of student-athletes and others
• Rising case numbers across portions of Western Canada, particularly in the age group of university students
• Continued inter-provincial travel restrictions imposed by provincial health authorities

"This isn't the outcome any of us wanted, however, it has become increasingly clear over the last few weeks that the environment wasn't going to change sufficiently to ensure safe competition in traditional conference formats in these sports," said CW president Clint Hamilton.

"Ultimately our members saw no feasible path to staging Canada West events during the 2020-21 season in these sports. With today's decision our members have opted to provide clarity to our stakeholders, most importantly our student-athletes. Collectively we didn't take the decision to cancel fall competition lightly in June, and today's announcement is equally disappointing to everyone involved in university sport. That being said, our members will continue to seek new ways of delivering non-conference sport competition for our student-athletes."

-UC-