More bad news for athletes at Thompson Rivers University as Canada West has cancelled the regular season, playoffs, and championships for both basketball and volleyball because of COVID-19.

A decision on the 2020-21 Canada West championships in curling, track & field, and swimming has yet to be made, but hockey, wrestling, and women’s rugby 7s will also not be going ahead this school year.

“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,” Canada West president Clint Hamilton said.

“Ultimately our members saw no feasible path to staging traditional Canada West conference 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.”

Canada West made it decision at the same time that Ontario University Athletics (OUA), Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ), and Atlantic Univeristy Sport (AUS) made similar announcements regarding the status of their 2020-21 seasons.

U SPORTS has also cancelled all remaining 2020-21 national championships after consulting with championship hosts as well as the four athletic conferences.

“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,” Hamilton added. “Our members will now shift their focus to finding new ways of delivering non-conference sport competition for our student-athletes.”

Earlier this month, Canada West said it would delay making this decision to assess the feasibility of conference play returning given the evolving COVID-19 environment.

While there won’t be competition, Canada West says it will look to find competitive opportunities for their student-athletes, based on the principle of regional cohort play.

As it stands, the hope is to return to full competition in the fall of 2021.

(Photo via TRU Wolfpack)