A St. Mary player puts up a three against Carlton during the 2024 Regional tournament in Prince Albert. (File photo/paNOW Staff)

By paNOW Staff

OUT OF TIME

HOOPLA 2024 cancelled as deadline to lift sanctions passes

Mar 20, 2024 | 3:35 PM

The deadline has passed and the biggest high school basketball tournament in the province won’t be happening in 2024.

The Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association (SHSAA) confirmed that with no deal reached by 3 p.m. Wednesday, all athletic events this weekend, including HOOPLA have been cancelled.

“The Board of Directors is extremely saddened by the outcome,” the SHSAA said in a news release. “For over 75 years of operation, teacher volunteers, with the support of our members, the School Boards of Saskatchewan, have been the backbone of our association. We are extremely grateful for volunteer coaches that drive school sport.”

The SHSAA said that teams that qualified for HOOPLA 2024 are invited to participate in a one-day Provincial Basketball Championship in Moose Jaw.

Each team involved will play one game against an opponent based on their seeding on Saturday, which would have been the final day of HOOPLA.

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The news that HOOPLA was in jeopardy left students across Saskatchewan angry with hundreds holding rallies in Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, and Regina. The Senior Boys team from Carlton High School in Prince Albert held a silent protest by not talking to teachers until the union talks to the provincial government.

READ MORE: Fate of HOOPLA now up to teachers and the province says SHSAA

“As students have endured the unrest, they demonstrated many of the qualities that their coaches have tried to nurture in an educational athletic setting,” the SHSAA said. “We have also been made aware of many situations where teams have come together to cope and support each other through the disappointment.”

The Saskatchewan Teachers Federation (STF) responded to the HOOPLA news and while they say they are disappointed this has come, they put the blame squarely at the governments feet.

“This government has the power to immediately end all job action by either agreeing to binding arbitration on the contentious issue of class size and complexity or providing the Government-Trustee Bargaining Committee with a mandate to negotiate that issue. Arbitration provides a fair and objective path for resolution of this issue, and we are confident that negotiations on all other issues could be resolved quickly. Teachers are willing to present our case to an arbitrator and accept the arbitrator’s ruling – why won’t government?

It’s the third time in five years that Hoopla has been cancelled. It wasn’t held in 2020 due to sanctions levied by the STF in its previous contract negotiations with the government and was done in 2021 by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to Hoopla, things like band concerts and trips, field trips and planning for graduation ceremonies have been affected by the teachers withholding extracurriculars.

The union and government remain in a stalemate over several issues, but classroom size and complexity have come to the forefront.

The STF wants those issues included in the collective bargaining agreement, but the government has said that idea is a non-starter. Instead, it has guaranteed increased funding to the school divisions so they can address the issues locally.

–With files from 650 CKOM