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Sault Steelers 2021 season remains an unknown

The Northern Football Conference made the decision at its recent AGM to delay further decisions on the 2021 season until April
2019-06-29 Steelers vs. Oakville BC (14)
Sault Steelers file photo. Brad Coccimiglio/SooToday

Whether or not the Sault Steelers, and the Northern Football Conference as a whole, will be playing this summer remains up in the air.

The league held it’s Annual General Meeting in late January and the decision was made to defer many of the motions the league would normally vote on until April.

Continuing concerns regarding COVID-19, which forced the cancellation of the 2020 season, mean the league will wait to make decisions on the 2021 season.

“The reason for that is that there’s just not enough information right now to make any good decisions,” Sault Steelers general manager and vice-president Jonathon Bujold said Wednesday evening. “There’s no point in finalizing anything and then finding out when April or May comes that it was pointless to even vote on it at that point.”

Bujold added that “a majority of the major decisions” will be voted on in a meeting in late-April.

Bujold said that one of the major concerns brought up during the AGM, which was held virtually, was regarding field permits for some southern-Ontario based teams in the Toronto area.

“There’s even mention that the permits won’t be issued this year in the summer through the Toronto area,” Bujold said.

From a local standpoint, Bujold spoke of the question of whether the team would be able to play games with fans in attendance.

“The Steelers depend so heavily on gate revenue,” Bujold said. “Are we going to be allowed to have crowds? If not, how much of an impact does that have on our financial viability? Because we’re going to have to ask the players to not only pay a lot more money for their players fees to finance a season but is that model sustainable.”

Bujold also said locally, the team hasn’t discussed field permits with the city at this point.

The border closure also comes into play for the team with four American recruits who have signed with the team.

Concerns regarding traveling to high-case areas will also be something the team will take into consideration as the new season approaches as well.

“We represent our community and I know that Northern Ontario is a lot more concerned with traveling to other districts that are high-case areas and bring (COVID) back here,” Bujold said. “We definitely don’t want to be doing anything that our community wouldn’t approve of either. There’s a lot to consider and a lot has to improve drastically or change between now and then to see summer football as a realistic possibility.”


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Brad Coccimiglio

About the Author: Brad Coccimiglio

A graduate of Loyalist College’s Sports Journalism program, Brad Coccimiglio’s work has appeared in The Hockey News as well as online at FoxSports.com in addition to regular freelance work with SooToday before joining the team full time.
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