The hope is that the BC high school gridiron playoffs are back in the dome next season.
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High school football will not be able to rent BC Place Stadium for the Subway Bowl playoffs this season, according to PavCo, the Crown corporation that manages the downtown Vancouver dome.
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PavCo has a request for proposal on the BC Bid website looking for a company to redo the BC Place lawn. The offer opened on September 24 and closes on Friday. That was one of the reasons given by PavCo’s Duncan Blomfield for not renting for high school football in a written statement Wednesday night.
The high school soccer provinces held at BC Place date back to the 1980s, though the rounds in some years have been moved due to scheduling conflicts.
There are three weeks left in this year’s high school regular football season. The Bowl finals are scheduled for December 4.
“BC Place has been a proud and strong supporter of BC high school football for many years,” Blomfield wrote. “The stadium management has been working closely with the BC School Sports team for several months to determine the possibility of hosting the 2021 championship series at BC Place.
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“With the recent resumption of major events and activities in BC, the demand for available event dates at the stadium has been exceptionally strong and complex to manage. Additionally, BC Place is scheduled to undertake a critical turf replacement project in the months of December and January.
“Despite our best efforts and numerous discussions to determine the appropriate dates to host BC High School Soccer at BC Place in 2021, we were unable to reach a mutually acceptable schedule. Unfortunately, BC High School has now decided to go ahead with an alternate location for this year. We look forward to working with BC School Sports and the BC high school football community with the goal of hosting the championships again in 2022 ”.
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BC School Sports (BCSS) CEO Jordan Abney says the plan is to have a playoff spot finalized within the next 10 days. He also said that the hope is to return to BC Place in the future.
Abney wouldn’t have a choice about where these playoffs might go, but Langley’s McLeod Stadium and the University of BC Thunderbird Stadium have hosted postseason matchups in previous years. There is also the new SFU Stadium at Terry Fox Field.
Travis Bell, who chairs the BCSS soccer sports advisory committee, admitted to being particularly disappointed in light of COVID-19 ending the soccer season last year. High school sports were in practice-only mode for the year.
“We were hoping that if there was a year to make BC’s historic high school football dates at BC Place a programming priority, this would have been the one,” he explained. “We had requested in the summer to have dates for semifinals and finals, understanding that there were BC Lions games for wild cards and quarterfinals. We would have understood if it had been a Lions playoff game that hit us. That is also not the rationale they have given us. “
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This is the first year BCSS has been in charge of running the playoffs. They had previously been an umbrella group for school sports, but took over governance this summer after a vote from member schools. There was a setback, mostly from basketball coaches, and Abney realizes that football if he doesn’t use BC Place this season could raise some eyebrows.
“I’m very in tune with that,” he said. “I am grateful that the football group has been great to work with and when the transition happened it was quick and smooth with them. If that hadn’t happened, I’d be more concerned now. Coaches may have questions, and that’s fair, but I can show you all the emails (with PavCo). “
BC Place is also home to the Lions and the Vancouver Whitecaps. The Leos’ last regular season game at home is Nov. 19. The Caps’ last regular-season game at the stadium is Nov. 7. Both clubs could have playoff games at home.
Under a proposal from BC Bid, PavCo is seeking a company to “remove and remove existing synthetic grass and re-layer and replace with new synthetic grass, shock pad, infill, stone / rubber / urethane leveling track and works Related at BC Place Stadium “.
Twitter: @SteveEwen
Reference-theprovince.com