2021 edition cancelled

Waterloo, September 22, 2020

It is with regret that the organizing committee of the Waterloo National Pee-Wee Tournament announces that it has decided to cancel the 2021 edition du to the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19.

We tried to came up with different scenarios that would have allowed us to organize the tournament despite the pandemic (management of the crowd, arrival of players, becoming a provincial, or even regional, tournament (rather than national), etc.), but unfortunately three important factors compromised too much the venue of our event:

1. Even in the event of a possible "Phase 6" of the Hockey Quebec recovery plan*, the risk that a region of Quebec obtains the '' level 4 COVID-19 alert (red zone)'', during our tournament, could compromise all of its logistics. Indeed, from then on, residents of this specific region would not be allowed to travel to Waterloo.
2. Likewise, if our own region, the Eastern Townships (Estrie), was to obtain ''level 4'' during the two weeks of our tournament, sports with frequent close contacts, such as hockey, could simply be banned. This would prevent a tournament from being held; even if its only regional.
3. In phase 6, with teams that have more than 11 players, the necessary distance of 1 meter between each player of the same team would require about one and a half dressing rooms per team. In addition, 30 minutes are needed to disinfect the dressing rooms between each game **. Since the Jacques Chagnon arena has only six dressing rooms, the rotation of all the teams, within them, became too complex to manage.

Wishing to protect all our volunteers who have built the reputation of our tournament year after year, the organizing committee thinks it is wiser to postpone our 47th edition by one year. We know our tournament is a winter flagship event for our community and we are sorry to have to cancel it, but, we believe it was the best decision to make.

We look forward to seeing you again in 2022,

Marc-Antoine Bazinet and Alexandre St-Martin,

Co-Presidents of the Waterloo National Pee-Wee Tournament

* We would like to underline the efforts of Hockey Quebec, and particularly Hockey Estrie, which allow our youth to practice this sport during this troubled period. All the details here: https://www.hockey.qc.ca/fr/page/retour_au_hockey.html (French only)

** Reference: Instructions, as of September 4, 2020, from the City of Waterloo for the use of the arena.