WECSSAA Sports will play again on Monday after a 20-month hiatus

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Come Monday, the game for area high school sports begins.

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More than 20 months after COVID-19 closed the world, the Windsor and Essex County High School Athletic Association will be back in action starting with the Lajeunesse Royals taking on the Sandwich Sabers in AAA girls’ hockey at the Vollmer Complex. to start.

Men’s hockey will follow, as well as a compressed fall sports program for women’s basketball and men’s volleyball.

“We just want the children to play and get a taste of the comeback,” he said. WECSSAA Secretary / Treasurer Joe Amicarelli, who also coaches senior girls basketball at Essex High School.

WECSSAA announced plans for athletes to return to play with both doses of the virus vaccine nearly a month ago, but there have been challenges to the restart.

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“It’s a little different” Amicarelli said. “There are children who have been working for the last two years and that meant leaving a job to play. Many are struggling to get the kids out steadily. “

For some schools, it means combining junior players with senior players in order to create a team.

“Realistically, even in our place, we have two teams and we have to combine to get 12 in one practice,” Amicarelli said. “I think the lists will change throughout the year. Could It’s not capacity, but the kids are signing up and that’s exciting. “

For women’s basketball and men’s volleyball, the season will be condensed into five weeks and 10 games with a week of playoff games in January. To limit travel, county schools will clash and city schools will do the same. A champion will be determined by the level at which a school competes and not by A, AA or AAA status.

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“There is no SWOSSAA or OFSAA, but we expect men’s basketball and women’s volleyball to be different,” Amicarelli said of winter sports.

Lambton County and Kent County are also moving toward a comprehensive vaccination policy, which could open things up for a SWOSSAA final for winter sports, starting in late January.

With the exception of the United Mennonite Education Institute, Amicarelli said every school will have at least one sport in a competing gender.

The hope is that things will get closer to normal with winter sports and even more so with spring sports, which have not been played in the last two years.

Some fall sports, such as tennis and golf, could be carried over to the spring and Amicarelli said others such as soccer and cross country will be revised in the spring.

And in another sign that things haven’t fully returned to normal, no family, friends, or fans will be allowed in the games at this point, but that’s just another price tag for getting back into action.

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