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Yesterday, I wrote a post discussing the court decision to grant an injunction to allow Louis Reil High School Girls' soccer team to participate in OFSAA, the Ontario high school championships. In that post I discussed how great it was that the team from Louis Reil was able to participate in the tournament and how the court decided to set aside a completely arbitrary and bureaucratic decision made by NCSSAA.
What I completely overlooked was the impact of this decision. I- perhaps foolishly- believed that OFSAA would allow both Louis Reil and Colonel By high school to participate in the tournament. Colonel By was named as the participating school when Louis Reil was disqualified. The Court decision came the day before the competition was scheduled to start. The celebrating Louis Reil students hopped on a bus and travelled to the tournament in Hamilton.
The students from Colonel By were already there.
Upon hearing the news the OFSAA organizers decided to follow the Court injunction and allow Louis Reil to play. Unfortunately for Colonel By, this meant that they were removed completely from the tournament. They had travelled all the way from Ottawa to Hamilton, more than a 5 hour drive, to be told to go home.
This is not the result that I was expected. I understand that it is difficult to completely rework a schedule on short notice. Actually, there are numerous online sites that can do this in a few minutes. Sure it could mean that all the game times are changed and more officials may need to be hired. But surely this is a more just result then just saying, "Sorry kids, go home."
I also feel bad for the organizers, as I am sure they must have at least considered allowing both teams to play (at least I hope so).
I think that this quote, published in the Ottawa Citizen, by Pat Lacasse, head coach of the Colonel By team sums up my thoughts on the situation as it has unfolded:

"We're disappointed on many levels. There are 10 girls on this team who are graduating, who have never participated in OFSAA, and we were quite literally hours away from doing so, and they won't have that opportunity. Ever.

"(We're) disappointed that the French public school board decided that they should take things to court, but again, that's personal opinion. (We're) disappointed that, in all of this, from the original decision that was taken a week ago, we have had no control. We have not asked for any of this. It seems that, in the end, someone else's clerical error has brought us to Hamilton for nothing."

There we have it. From what I thought was initially a great story about a great victory by a girls team against the bureaucratic and authoritative creature that is OFSAA and NCSSAA, turns into being nothing but tragedy for another group of young female athletes. I have a feeling that if Mr. Justice Douglas Rutherford would have known that this would be the result he would not have made the order. An injunction is an equitable remedy and, surely, the result has not been equitable for the athletes of Colonel By.

One final note. You may be wondering what happened to the Colonel By girls' team. Did they just go back to Ottawa to grieve the injustice and unfairness? Actually no.

They stopped in Mississauga to support the school's boys' soccer team at their OFSAA championship. How many of us would have done the same?

To the girls of the Colonel By girls' soccer team, you are a classy bunch and champions in my books. Competing in OFSAA is not everything and you are all going to accomplish much greater things, in sports and in life.

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