Pandemic shutdown takes a toll on Fleming Knights athletics

Fleming Knights varsity sports programs are feeling some effect from the cancellation of the 2020-21 OCAA season.

As fall sports begin to swing into action, Fleming isn’t fielding a men’s rugby team this year due to a lack of players, has put its cross country running program on hold as they look for a new head coach and they were unable to pull together a golf program in time to meet OCAA timelines. The college is also still looking for coaches for its men’s basketball and volleyball teams whose schedules start later this fall.

The men’s and women’s soccer teams kicked off their seasons Friday night with road games at Durham College and will play their first home game Sunday against St. Lawrence at 1 and 3 p.m. at the Fleming Sports Complex. Women’s rugby start their season Oct. 2 at

Seneca College and are not scheduled to host games this season.

Sandra Dupret, Fleming vicepresident of student experience, classified it as a partial, not full return to sport this school year.

“These students have been really secluded for almost 20 months,” said Dupret. “To be able to engage in that studentlife piece, the athletics portion that was such a gap last year and for part of 2020, it really does give them a sense of what student college life is like. We’re still not 100 per cent fully up and running as far as the level of activities running other than varsity sports.

“Rec sports we haven’t fully launched, it’s really just varsity sports. For athletes at the varsity level I think they’re getting the experience they were hoping for when they were playing at secondary school. We’re like 70 per cent there for that true experience.

“Soccer and women’s rugby are outdoor sports so they’re in an environment where it’s a little safer for the athletes to play. Prior to the college level across the board mandate for vaccinations, the OCAA had already put some protocols in place that would permit us to play sports so we were putting a return to sport in August identifying the coaches and recruiting the players. That was pretty exciting.

“The winter varsity sports, at this time, we are looking to have basketball, volleyball and curling and loggersports at our Frost campus take place as long as everything goes well with the (COVID-19) variants.”

Dupret said they are hoping to get a coach in place in order to offer cross country.

Dupret wasn’t sure why the men’s rugby team didn’t get enough players out but she said there aren’t as many students on campus as pre-pandemic.

“We still have a number of programs that aren’t being delivered on campus so the student body number, the physical presence on campus of students, is not full. If you have students who know their program is fully online, at least for the fall semester if not the duration of the program, they’re really not going to move to Peterborough if they’re from out of town. They’ll continue their studies remotely. That’s another impact to the potential availability of players.”

All participants must be fully vaccinated to participate, both by college and OCAA mandate, and Dupret said they are still working on a policy for spectators.

“We’re still trying to determine what spectators will look like at this point. That’s something all colleges are handling a little bit differently. At Fleming we’re still looking at what that will look like for us. There is less concern when it’s outdoors but there still is concern because our vaccination policy does indicate all visitors must be fully vaccinated,” she said.