Submitted by Jo Malisani on
Dear Fellow Members,
Over the past week, TUC Leadership has been closely monitoring the pandemic, following press conferences, attending Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries meetings, Ontario Trillium Health Partner webinars, reading bulletins, and discussing and creating what-if plans based on the Government of Ontario’s additional restrictions, and the surging case counts and infection rates.
In response to Premier Doug Ford’s announcement on Friday regarding additional restrictions due to the surge in daily COVID-19 cases, namely indoor venue capacity limits, TUC worked with our venue providers to clarify what, if any, impacts there are to TUC programming. Our venues advised that capacity limits per field would be approximately 40 to 45 people (depending on the facility).
TUC also set up our own evaluation system to determine whether we feel comfortable running, and unfortunately, we have now surpassed those thresholds. While the City of the Toronto, and the Ontario Provincial Government have not banned sports, Dr. Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health and Toronto’s Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr. Na-Koshie Lamptey are recommending that “we reduce in-person contact and limit gathering sizes” to slow the spread and allow more time for Ontarians to get fully vaccinated or those eligible to get their booster dose”.
In our eyes, running ultimate leagues and programs is not a risk we are willing to take at this time. We are so close to the holidays and do not want to see anyone forced into isolation.
We’ve also had a number of players, teams, parents and coaches inform us that they are not comfortable playing in this current climate.
Considering all the above, TUC Leadership has made the difficult decision to cancel all programming effective today, through to the end of 2021.
This will therefore conclude all programming planned ahead of the Holiday Break. This is not the way we wanted to close out the 2021 calendar year, but it has been a tremendous joy to see everyone out playing and enjoying the sport from July through to now!
TUC wants to thank all of you, our members, for trusting us to make ultimate as safe as possible, and an extra big thanks to our captains and coaches for their time and taking the brave steps back to make our Summer, Fall Outdoor and Fall Indoor seasons to date, great.
We also encourage members, if you are eligible to book your booster dose.
TUC will continue to monitor the situation and will provide updates as appropriate.
Stay safe,
Jo Malisani
Executive Director