As the province of Ontario is allowing indoor sports leagues to start the week of January 31st, many registered participants will have the opportunity to stay active now by checking out their winter league options.
A lot of people are thrilled at the prospect to start playing their sports again.
“Excited. I was very excited. I was ready to sign up again,” said Carlos Padernal, captain of a basketball team at JAM Sports. “To gather my teammates to see if they were comfortable.”
“Of course, all of our league play was paused in Ontario when the provincial mandate was announced,” said Susan Lute, Vice President of Marketing and JAM Sports. “And during that time, we’ve been working closely with our new partners to get back up and ready to go.”
Gyms and non-spectator areas of sports facilities will be reduced to 50 percent capacity.
“We do updates on our websites and then for every individual player that’s registered, we do a lot of our communication by individual email,” said Lute. “And that’s a lot of the details about when play starts, how to sort of getting back to your league.
The Ontario provincial government had made an announcement about the mandated 3-week shutdown of indoor sports facilities and rec centers starting on January 5th.
Some registered participants were disappointed when they first heard the news that sports leagues were going to be canceled for 3 weeks.
“Kinda disappointed, “said Padernal. “I was looking forward to playing with my team.”
“There’s a couple of things that I think it’s important,“ said Padernal. “For one, it’s being active to have a healthy lifestyle. And then number two is you get to meet new people, whether it’s your teammates or your opponents, you get to meet them as well. So that’s pretty nice.”
Those who registered to join a recreational league will finally get the chance to play again. “Thank you so much for being patient and sticking with us,” said Lute.