Friday May 29, 2020 ~ LANGFORD, BC
by Mary Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News
It’s in the preliminary stages, but the City of Langford is putting together a plan to possibly be a hub for the 2020 professional soccer season of the Canadian Premier League (CPL).
This would help put some of the sports-zing back into the goals of Langford being a ‘national sports capital’ (a pre-COVID goal).
The CPL has eight teams, with the Pacific FC team on Vancouver Island having used Westhills Stadium in Langford for its home games in the 2019 inaugural year of CPL.
Reportedly the City of Langford and Pacific FC have pitched to the national CPL organizers that the entire 2020 season be played in Langford over a 60-day time frame.
Reactivating Westhills Stadium during the pandemic:
Games would be played at Westhills Stadium without a live audience (within the Provincial Health Officer’s orders for no mass gatherings of over 50 people during the COVID-19 pandemic). The games would be livestreamed.
It was only last summer (in August 2019) that the City of Langford celebrated the expansion of Westhills Stadium to 6,000 seats so as to welcome larger audiences for sports events and concerts.
[Expansion announcement April 24, 2019 | How the stadium was expanded (August 16, 2019 issue of West Shore Voice News)| Pre-event Grand Celebration for August 24, 2019 | Grand celebration August 24, 2019 – large PDF ]
Other plans such as relocating the longstanding Langford Show ‘n Shine car show to the City Centre area in Westhills (with use of the stadium) have been in the works since last year, with no word yet on that for 2020.
Adhering to physical distancing during COVID-19:
Players would have to self-quarantine for two weeks upon arrival, be isolated between games, and kept in very tight groups.
The proposal would need approval from BC’s Provincial Health Officer.
Phase 3 of the Restart BC reopening of the economy starts next week, loosely time-framed as June to September.
For a robust local economy such as Langford’s which (in its third growth phase, coming after commercial business sector expansion and then housing expansion) is now heavily based on sports and entertainment, the pandemic has hit hard in a particularly focused way.
Very little wiggle room:
Large organized events like professional sports and concerts have taken a hard hit during the economic impacts of COVID-19 due to the mass-gathering restrictions.
And more broadly, the tourism industry (of which sports and concerts are a component) is considered one of the most impacted economic centres due to its reliance on large numbers of people from many locations. Within the orders and guidelines for physical distancing, these sectors have very little wiggle room.
Having the CPL players accommodated in Langford for a 2020 hub series of games would help the local hotel and restaurant sector as well.