B.C. to announce return of school-based sports tournaments Friday

For school sports tournaments, it's game on.

B.C.'s education ministry said an announcement is coming Friday to allow team-based school sports tournaments, which were suspended in the face of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant.

The ministry offered no specific details in an emailed statement to CBC News but said the announcement will "allow team-based tournaments to resume, ensuring all school-based health and safety guidelines are in place at all tournament venues."

"We are grateful for the extraordinary work undertaken at this time by everyone in our education system to ensure programs like sports tournaments can continue for students, while remaining committed to keeping in-class learning as our top priority," the statement read.

Tournaments have been cancelled since Dec. 21 as part of a wider set of public health restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the Omicron variant.

Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that youth sports would be allowed to go ahead at a news conference on Jan. 25 as more children continue to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

However, the Ministry of Health later clarified that only community-based sports tournaments would return, with competitions organized by schools still restricted.

The school tournament ban led to outcry from many parents. An online petition started last week calling for the ban to be reversed has amassed over 13,000 signatures as of Thursday evening.

"I am not surprised at all in any way, shape or form," said petition-starter Tricia Joseph, a Richmond parent of two high school basketball players, when asked about the many signatures.

"This is a big deal in these young kids' lives … and we wanted to make sure that they got to have that one last experience after two years of, basically, COVID hell."

Joseph wants to see tomorrow's announcement ensure that spectators can be present at games. If fans can go watch the Canucks play, she argued, why can't she watch her kids?

"They don't want to just be playing to empty stands," she said.

Lucky Toor, a basketball coach at Seaquam Secondary in Delta who also has two daughters playing on a junior basketball team, said the timing of the news gives him hope basketball provincials can be played along with lead-up regional tournaments.

"I think everybody was sitting on pins and needles right now with all this uncertainty, whether or not the next level of playoffs can happen," Toor said.