By Victoria Surla

As COVID-19 continues to disrupt everyday life, students find themselves further disconnected from the activities they love most. Varsity sports at George Brown College (GBC) has now become one of the most recent of these activities to be put on hold, and for the Huskies community, it has not been an easy pill to swallow.

On October 15, The Ontario Colleges Athletic Association (OCAA) announced that all sanctioned varsity sports competitions are cancelled for the Winter 2021 semester due to increasing COVID-19 cases. The decision will affect 27 member schools, including George Brown College (GBC).

Although this information did not necessarily come as surprising news to Victoria Lawrence, a varsity women’s basketball player at GBC, it stung nevertheless.

“Really hearing that – ‘no it’s cancelled’, you know, it was tough, said Lawrence “I already knew that there was a chance that we weren’t going to have a season, so I kind of had that in my head, kept focused on my goals… I continued working out when I could, here and there. I still enrolled in school. I didn’t really hesitate to stop and drop out, but there’s more to life than basketball.”

Lawrence says that for her teammates from out of Ontario, receiving news of the cancellation was especially disappointing, due to how many sacrifices were made for them to be here in Toronto at GBC.

“We have girls flying outside of the province to come play for our team and for them to realize, ‘wow we don’t have a season’. It’s tough because that comes with a lot of money, you’re leaving your family and then you’re coming to do something that you love but then you can’t do it because it’s cancelled.”

Although the cancellation is not what she had hoped for, Lawrence still chooses to look at the positive side of things.

“Yeah, I’m in school for basketball, but also, I’m in school for education. I want to be able to do something with my life.”

The cancellation has impacted the lives of the entire Huskies family, well beyond student-athletes. For Jake Howarth, sports and media coordinator at GBC, the news has forced him to become more innovative.

“The cancellation impacted my role to a degree since there are no sports to report on or home games to broadcast,” said Howarth. “It has challenged me to be more creative in how I promote our student-athletes and the Huskies brand. I am excited for the content we have coming down the pipeline this semester and in the winter semester.”

The cancellation has been disappointing for everyone in the GBC Huskies athletic community, including women’s varsity basketball coach, Omari Wiltshire.

“Coach Omari, it was going to be his first time being a head coach, so for him to also hear that the season was cancelled, it’s tough,” says Lawrence. “You get so excited about a new journey in your life, but then it doesn’t happen.”

Howarth feels that student-athletes will miss the experience of feeling like a teammate above all.

“I think they will miss the experience of being a student-athlete. Putting in the hard work to excel in their respective sport and classes with their teammates and peers,” he said.

“Being a part of a team, you are used to spending hours and days with them working on your craft. Not being able to experience that, pursue a championship and create lifelong memories is the biggest thing I think student-athletes will miss.”

Although they cannot be together physically, Lawrence says that her team speaks at least once a week, as a means of offering support to one another through what is going on [COVID-19].

“We might have training in November, we might have training once in a while, and then we might be able to have exhibition games. And on top of that, we’re still communicating as a team, we still talk once a week and see each other on zoom.”

Chris McGrath, the vice-president of student success at GBC, said in a student-wide email that virtual activities will occur next semester and on-campus recreation programs will eventually resume once the pandemic dissipates.

But for Howarth, unity and showing support to student-athletes is paramount during these unprecedented times.

“Our department and the Husky family are similar to a pack. We are always here to support our student-athletes anyway possible.”