P.W.S.A. ANNOUNCEMENT – 2021 Season
As we look ahead to the 2021 season, we continue to work with the Ministry and other advisors on what the landscape may look like for our softball communities into next year. At present, we have been advised that some form of cohort/pod play will be expected for the entire 2021 playing season. The size of the cohorts/pods remains to be seen, but we are hopeful these numbers will be considerably higher than what everyone experienced in 2020. Regional play is the expectation, and with that we have begun work on detailing a plan for everyone to see sometime later this month.
P.W.S.A. reached out to the leaders of the three largest softball leagues in the Province to determine if these groups would be willing to work together alongside us to administer the regional cohorts/pods for the 2021 season. The CEWFL, Grand Valley and Peel-Halton leagues all agreed to work together to create the best possible playing experience for teams in 2021. P.W.S.A. has asked, and each league has confirmed that they are onboard with opening their leagues to teams that have traditionally opted out of league play.
The path to the 2021 Provincials will be tied into regional play within the created cohorts/pods. Teams will need to play in regional events (tournaments) and performance in these events will determine eligibility and placement in P.W.S.A. Provincials in 2021. These regional events will be coordinated jointly with the leagues mentioned above and P.W.S.A. officials. We estimate that there will be 6 to 8 weeks of weekend play once the weather improves and municipalities open diamonds for rental use.
A working group comprised of representatives from the CEWFL, Grand Valley & Peel-Halton leagues has been created to look at working on a point system. This system would be used to rank teams for the available positions at the P.W.S.A. 2021 Provincial Championships. More details on the point system will be forthcoming at the AGM scheduled for November 28th. Following the completion of regional play there will be a 7 to 10-day quarantine period, and then after that teams will be slotted into their year-end Provincial tournament based on the rankings obtained from cohort/pod play results.
We are strongly recommending that all teams reach out to one of the leagues mentioned. We have provided contact information at the end of this message for each. If your association/team elects to not participate in regional play within these cohort/pod groups, you will not be eligible for Provincials and/or Canadian Championships, Ontario Summer Games, or Eastern Canadians, if applicable. A commitment with respect to affiliation, or at worst a commitment to participate will be needed from all teams by the end of December. This will allow P.W.S.A. and the leagues to begin the work and process to place teams in the cohorts/pods and begin looking for venues for Provincials, and the regional weekend events.
P.W.S.A. will be reaching out to those in the Windsor-Chatham corridor, as well as the Ottawa-Cornwall-Kingston areas to discuss opportunities to work with the league administrators to include your associations within these regional cohort/pod groups.
The COVID-19 situation continues to be fluid, with changes coming down from government daily. We continue to ask for everyone’s patience and cooperation as we start to head down this path. Our commitment is to be able to provide everyone with more information for review at our November AGM and in the days following. We continue to ask associations/teams to begin the affiliation process with us. As of today, we have almost 100 teams confirmed, but that still leaves more than 50% that have not yet started down the affiliation path.
We continue to remind everyone that for the foreseeable future travel permits will not be issued for travel outside of Province. We also ask teams that are planning to work towards Provincials, Eastern Canadians, Ontario Summer Games, or the Canadian Championships that they exercise caution and restraint when booking tournaments out of Province. 2021 regional play will require teams to participate in a specific number of games to be considered for a berth in the Grand Championships. With the weekends undecided at this point for regional play, booking events that your team plans to attend could create conflict with the regional approach to events in Province.
We will be working on a FAQ page for our website, and the P.W.S.A. app. These will be ready following the P.W.S.A. AGM at the end of November.
We will host a series of town halls for the different age groups beginning of December to discuss the plans.
Here are the contacts for the three leagues discussed:
CEWFL: Shannon Post – heyu686@hotmail.com
Grand Valley: Chris Meyer – contactgvlsa@gmail.com
Peel Halton: Steve Finan – steve_finan@hotmail.com
