Nova Scotia Education Minister Zach Churchill just became the favourite politician of of high school athletes across the province.
Late Friday afternoon, Churchill called on the Nova Scotia School Athletic Federation to reinstate high school rugby, after the federation banned it only the day before.
“In making the decision to abruptly end high school rugby, the NSSAF contravened the terms and conditions of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in that it neglected to inform the department of its intent to communicate its decision on May 2,” Churchill said in a release. “And furthermore, made the decision without appropriate consultation with school communities.”
Churchill also said he was influenced by the fact that the provincial Medical Officer of Health, Robert Strang, along with other respected physicians, expressed strong concerns about the decision, citing data from across Canada.
“Given the perspective offered by the province’s Medical Officer of Health, I have called on NSSAF to reinstate rugby for all high schools immediately for the duration of the season,” the minister said. “I have also asked the NSSAF to work with the department to assemble a panel of subject matter experts to thoroughly review and assess available research on safety in sports for school sports across Nova Scotia.”
The minister’s surprising announcement put an end to a day full of emotion.
Chanting, singing, tossing a ball and holding signs that said It Hurts Us More Not to Play, What Contact Sport is Next?, and NSSAF is Dumb AF, hundreds of high school rugby players demonstrated at the Nova Centre in Halifax on Friday afternoon.
They were protesting the decision of the Nova Scotia School Athletic Federation to kill the sport they love, while inside the NSSAF was holding its annual spring luncheon.
About 10 schools were represented, with the largest contingent being the teams from King’s-Edgehill School that bused in from Windsor.
“For us, rugby’s not just a thing we practise once a week,” said Evan Logan, KES flanker and captain. “We play every day, we practise every day, play games at lunch, any free time we have. It’s more than a sport for us, it’s a lifestyle, as corny as that sounds. All through the year, we eat, drink, sleep and talk about rugby and to have it ripped from us is heartbreaking.”
The NSSAF has determined that rugby is too dangerous to be played any more, based on data from its insurance carrier, the School Insurance Program. Board chair Stephen MacNeil told a media scrum after the luncheon that he had “no idea” how much it would cost to put in place more substantial insurance.
“Another recommendation from SIP was that perhaps we could offer a gold plan insurance for rugby athletes,” he said. “From our end of things, that doesn’t solve our problem. If we’re in a position where we have to go find better insurance coverage to look after the scope of injuries to our students, that doesn’t ease my concerns at all.”
But Evan Logan plays three sports for his school, and doesn’t feel like he’s in danger on the rugby pitch.
“I play soccer and I wrestle. I dislocated my elbow this year during wrestling, and I haven’t gotten injured during rugby at all,” he said, speaking loudly to be heard over chants of Let Us Play. “I think the injuries in rugby are due to lack of experience, it’s one of the fastest growing sports and more people are playing. It’s a contact sport and people are joining in later in their life, so I think it’s lack of experience. I don’t feel any more threatened playing rugby than I do playing any other sport.”
Tim Houston, Leader of the Opposition, attended the demonstration and said he’s especially troubled by the decision to kill rugby in the middle of the season.
“This is a time when we’re encouraging kids to be active, to be part of something, and a lot of kids find it in rugby,” he said. “They find it in other high school sports. For the rugby players, they’ve done the fundraising, they’ve done the training and all of sudden to have it pulled away from them, it’s pretty unfair.”
But MacNeil said while he admires the passion of the demonstrators, the board has decided rugby is not safe for students.
“So there really can’t be any delay in implementing, we couldn’t say ‘Well, let’s finish out the season and cross our fingers and see what happens,’” he said. “In fact, over the last two years of looking at rugby, there’s always been in the back of our mind, ‘God, I hope something doesn’t happen before we finally make a difficult decision regarding the sport of rugby.’”
MacNeil denied that rugby was being inappropriately punished for being too thorough in reporting of injuries. He said their figures show that rugby players are far more likely to suffer a head injury than a hockey or football player.
“We’ve done everything we could at the board level to make rugby as safe a sport as possible. The problem is that the numbers didn’t reflect the effort being put into making the sport safer,” he said. “The injuries continued to pile up.”
MacNeil acknowledged the board was affected by the death of a high school rugby player last year in P.E.I., and by a serious head injury suffered by a player at Glace Bay High, where MacNeil is the vice-principal, this week.
He said if Rugby Nova Scotia creates an entire grassroots program of full contact rugby so that athletes are skilled in the game when they enter high school, they’d consider bringing it back, a scenario he admits is unlikely.
“A lot would have to happen to ease our minds with regards to the safety of rugby,” he said, suggesting - seemingly seriously - ultimate frisbee and kin-ball as possible replacements for rugby on the NSSAF spring sports calendar.
Even though the demonstration was long over by the time MacNeil spoke to reporters, three players from Avon View High, including Catherine Dauphinee, who said they lingered to hear what he had to say.
“I want them to look in the faces of the people they took it away from.”
RELATED:
