Next week's basketball provincial championships are set to go ahead despite the teachers' strike planned for March 5-7.
B.C. School Sports, the organizing body for high school sports in the province, posted a message on its website Thursday saying that all winter sport provincial championships falling under the BCSS jurisdiction will go ahead as scheduled.
The main sport affected is basketball with senior girls provincials scheduled for March 7-10 at the A, AA and AAA levels and senior boys provincials scheduled for March 7-10 at the A and AA levels. The AAA girls provincials are to be held on the North Shore at the Capilano University Sportsplex. High school gymnastics championships scheduled for March 8-10 in Burnaby could also be affected.
While the tournaments will go ahead as planned, it will be up to each school to decide what it will do with its teams if teacher-coaches or teacher-sponsors are unwilling or unable to act as supervisors or enter public schools while on strike.
"Hotels have been booked, flights have been made, facilities have been rented," said Gerry Karvelis, co-ordinator of athletics for the North Shore Secondary Schools Athletics Association. "It's up to the school to make the final decision."
If a teacher-coach or teacher-sponsor is unable to accompany a team they could potentially be replaced by a school administrator, said Karvelis. Many North Shore teams are coached by community coaches or parent coaches who would not be affected by a strike.
Karvelis said he did not yet know what will happen to next week's provincial basketball invitational tournaments for younger age groups that do not fall under the BCSS umbrella.
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