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For proponents of the beautiful game, perhaps one of the most ambitious motions to grace this year’s NOSSA annual meeting order paper is a campaign to expand the girls and boys AA and AAA soccer events into a combined six-team, two-day championship.
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Presently, these events are contested separately and most often include a four-team, single-elimination draw in the AA category and just a single-game championship in AAA.
Some years ago, any thought of a multi-day schedule format was set aside, the thinking being that an expansion of the single-day format over two weekdays would likely interfere with existing spring sport championships like track or tennis, which would almost certainly compromise the affected schools’ ability to enter both events.
But recent successes with past forays into combined AA/AAA schedules in sports like basketball and hockey may have prompted its most recent iteration in soccer, with participating teams testing their skills in as many as four games over two days, as opposed to the current maximum of two.
With little to no wiggle room in a jam-packed spring sport schedule, the proposal seeks to expand the NOSSA AA/AAA championships into Saturday following a Friday-morning start, dodging conflicts with track or tennis also needing to be hosted in that same week given corresponding OFSAA entry deadlines.
From strictly a sport purist’s perspective, it’s difficult to find fault with the proposal over the current one-loss-and-done single-elimination model. The season is short enough, so say supporters, without a slow start or lacklustre effort in a single game bringing a team’s entire season to a crashing halt. As well, a convener’s ability to seed teams properly in a single-elimination format is a key to success for this format — involving teams that may never have played each other beforehand.
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But moving games to a Saturday at this crazy busy period of the school year is likely going to make delegates nervous and may be the one concern that could sink the proposal if deemed significant enough.
The motion goes before the NOSSA membership for their consideration on Friday as the 2022 NOSSA AGM goes virtual for the time in the association’s history.
Order paper results will be posted to the NOSSA website at nossa.rainbowschools.ca when complete.
High school notes
That was a long two week stretch for Troy Brushett of St. Benedict, hosting the SDSSAA and NOSSA badminton championships within days of each other and both to rave reviews. Great work, Mr. Brushett, AKA Mr. Spreadsheet, and kudos to Gillian Obradovich (Lockerby CS), Blake Rosener and Farrah Farstad (St. Charles College) and Zander Lauzon and Ella Kissner (Es Macdonald-Cartier) on qualifying for
OFSAA badminton in Pain Court May 5-7!
Dave Makela is the athletic administrator for the Sudbury District Secondary Schools Athletic Association. His column runs weekly during the high school sports season.
