Outdoor Season Update – Durham Region enters Phase 1 of Ontario Soccer’s Ready To Play Guidelines.
Good afternoon, I hope this email finds you and your families all safe and healthy.
It’s been a little while since we have published any news, so we thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a short update on what’s going on relative to the League and the summer Season.
Durham Region, entered into Phase 2 of Ontario’s Reopening plans on Friday and today Ontario Soccer announced that Durham Region can enter into Phase 1 of the Return to Play guidelines.
The specific soccer phases are not tied directly to the Ontario reopening ones, but they are loosely coupled, and should follow approx one Phase behind the Ontario plan..
The 3 phases of Return to Play for Ontario Soccer are as follows:
Phase 1: Return to Training (modified training) – THIS IS WHERE WE NOW ARE
Conditions: All Phase 1 Return to Train conditions are met
Restrictions: No contact, no league, exhibition, festival or tournament games
Phase 2: Return to Training and Modified Games (enhanced training & modified games)
Conditions: All Phase 2 Return to Train conditions are met
Inter-squad and Intra-squad modified games permitted (only within the Club/Academy)
Restrictions: No league, exhibition, festival or tournament games
Phase 3: Return to Soccer (regular competition, games and training)
Conditions: Social distancing restrictions have been lifted
Restrictions: None
The phases outlined above apply equally to all recreational, competitive and high performance level soccer.
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Before DASLeague can officially enter into Phase 1, we have to submit some paperwork to DRSA and Ontario Soccer to get approval. Once we enter into Phase 2, we will be able to have scrimmages and pick up games with registered players.
Note we still also haven’t gotten approval for field permits, but the hope and expectation is they will align with Phase 2 dates.
We are in the process of preparing registration, but are hoping for a little more clarity before we open it up. As the earliest likely start date will be mid-July having a full season is not possible, so we are discussing alternate options such as running pickup games, a friendly league similar to Monday’s indoor or some other format that we can get up and running quickly and keep costs low and get everyone out playing footy.
The board is meeting regularly, and we are in touch with all the captains. If you you are new to the league and/or not part of an existing team and want to play this summer in whatever our modified format ends up being, please email me at prez@dasleague.com
For more information about Ontario Soccer status, the best source of information is https://www.ontariosoccer.