To the Ontario Softball Community

The Ontario government has announced that as of 12:01am, Saturday, April 3rd, the province is moving back to lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of this lockdown for at least the next four weeks, there will be a suspension of all in-person organized softball activities, both indoor and outdoor, as of 12:01am, Saturday, April 3rd, 2021.

As everyone knows, the P.W.S.A. Board of Directors and the 2021 Summer Season Planning Committee have been working over the last few months on a format for the 2021 season that would allow teams to participate in cohorts/pods to begin the season, compete as groups at P.W.S.A. point weekends, and eventually have teams attend a provincial event in the late summer. While we remain hopeful that a proper provincial tournament can happen, based on the announcement today from the province we are going to need to adjust how the start of the season will look.

These adjustments will take some time for us to maneuver and complete. For now, we are asking everyone that was looking into hosting weekends to continue to do so, bearing in mind the weekends may have a reduced number of teams/games depending on the continued evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are sorry to hear that softball activities will need to be suspended for the next 28 days. We all recognize this is disheartening to your hard-working athletes, coaches and volunteers. When we do get the approval to start training and playing games down the road, we also appreciate that your athletes will need conditioning time before we can expect them to be “game ready”. We will keep all of this in mind as we look for new solutions to the 2021 season.

We will be looking at creating a 3 to 4 team buddy system as a starting point. Geography will be the most important factor when looking at these smaller groups. Where possible, we will consider where teams are based and look to not stray too far from that groups’ health unit.

We do invite questions, but also ask that you allow our Divisional Coordinators & Planning Committee some time to think things over and consider the best alternatives we can present.

We will still be working with you on your outdoor return to play documents and all your team’s affiliation paperwork.

Stay safe!

Yours in softball,

P.W.S.A. Board of Directors and 2021 Summer Season Planning Committee