Monday July 12, 2021 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends
Soccer is up and running again in Canada, within easing COVID-19 public health restrictions. And corporate backing is showing up for the game.
The Canadian Premier League (CPL) professional soccer enterprise will be supported for the rest of its season by WestJet, it was announced today by CPL.
There is a 112-match season in this summer of 2021, with 28 matches per club in a single table format.
The season began on Saturday June 26 in Winnipeg with The Kickoff presented by Volkswagen. Each club is to play eight matches (32 games total). | Full schedule
Pacific FC in Langford:
The Langford-based Pacific FC (PFC) professional soccer team is one of eight clubs in the CPL. Their home turf is the Starlight Stadium (formerly Westhills Stadium) on Langford Parkway in the Westhills area.
Upon completion of The Kickoff on July 24, the CPL clubs will return to their home markets to continue the season where they will play an unbalanced schedule — 16 games against teams in their region and four more against teams they already played against in Winnipeg.
This variation in scheduling is due mostly to the continuing public health regulations and restrictions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Restrictions are easing up in BC under the provincial restart (presently in Step 3 for the summer, to at least September 7), but at different paces and with different timelines across the country.
Next game for PFC:
2021 CPL regular season (The Kickoff)
Pacific FC vs. Halifax
July 13, 2021 at 5:00 PT
IG Field in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca
Home market matches start July 30:
Home market matches will start July 30 and end on November 6 (in BC that could be with larger stadium crowds, if Step 4 is achieved in the public health and economic BC Restart). Each club will play their remaining 20 matches.
However, the Pacific FC club can already accommodate 5,000 people in the Starlight Stadium under BC Restart Step 3 guidelines (as a result of the announcement by Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry on June 29, 2021), which is only 1,000 short of the 6,000 stadium capacity.
Other than perhaps at the inaugural PFC event in April 2019 has the full capacity of the stadium been achieved. So in that sense, it’s back to business as usual for PFC.
Nonetheless, PFC Vice-President of Operations, Brad Norris-Jones, says: “It’s been a long wait and we look forward to welcoming our fans and players to our venue for the first live match of our season.”
“We are all eager and excited to return to our home markets and play in front of fans,” said Norris-Jones in a release today.
The renewed activity for Pacific FC is of course supportive to the City of Langford’s program well underway to make its mark as a ‘national sports capital’.
Economy opening up:
The economy is opening up in BC entirely because of the success of immunization against the COVID-19 virus. the COVID pandemic was officially declared in mid-March 2020.
Immunization began slowly in December 2020 and has ramped up to now in summer 2021 presently (at July 12, 2021) seeing 78.8% of the BC population (age 12+) having received a first dose, and 44.6% their second dose.
Full immunization (i.e. ‘herd immunity’) is considered achieved when about 80% of the BC population has received two doses.
So far in Canada, only people age 12 years and older are eligible for vaccination, with children being left unvaccinated and being the main source of transmission (in addition to teens and adults who remain unvaccinated).
Here on Vancouver Island, as of July 12, there have been 943,174 vaccinations administered by Island Health, of which 331,094 have been second doses.
===== RELATED:
Starlight Stadium adapting to 50 percent capacity in Step 3 (June 29, 2021)
Pacific FC team gearing up for season start (June 24, 2021)
CPL pro soccer league chooses Winnipeg for single-city season (June 6, 2021)
COVID economics: Langford woos Starlight for recovery of stadium & team sport (January 19, 2021)
