It was another unceremonious end for the Central Alberta Buccaneers.
With their sights set on capturing an Alberta Football League title, that opportunity will have to wait at least until next summer.
The league announced Tuesday that the AFL season was cancelled. It was originally slated to start on June 6 but was pushed back to June 26 by the COVID-19 pandemic.
League vice-president Tylor Johannesson, who also plays for the Bucs said Wednesday they realized after stage 2 of the province’s relaunch was announced, that they wouldn’t be able to play league games until phase 3.
“We just don’t know when that is. There was the option of practicing in July, because teams can technically practice right now and see if we can have a season in August,” he said in a Facebook post.
“Just financially, most teams couldn’t make it work. It’s too costly to pay for practice fields, especially if we don’t know if we’re going to play. At this point, with the announcement from the province… we had to cancel the season. We tried to hang on and pay it by ear.”
A similar sentiment was echoed by the Bucs, who added the decision was unanimously voted on by the league.
“While we were optimistic we would be taking the field for a shortened season in August, (Tuesday’s) announcement by the Alberta Government left too much uncertainly for our team’s to operate successfully,” read a statement by the team on Instagram.
The regular season had been condensed into seven weeks, with the Bucs starting on the road against the Calgary Wolfpack, with the home opener set for July 4 against the Edmonton Elite.
The regular season was supposed to wrap up on Aug. 15.
“We’re going to try and move on for a really strong 2021 season, we’ve got some things planned,” Johannesson added.
“We really want to keep the AFL alive, we’re just not going to be able to do it by actually playing (this year).”