SFU moving home games to US so unvaxxed football players don't have to cross border

SFU students finally have a beautiful new football stadium to call their own.

Too bad they won’t get to use it much again this season.

SFU’s football team will be playing nearly all of its home games on the road this season, apparently to accommodate unvaccinated players on rival teams.

Simon Fraser University announced that it has “made the decision” to play four of its five NCAA home games in Blaine, Washington instead of SFU Stadium at Terry Fox Field. The move was made, the school said, due to the “border restriction that requires all visitors entering Canada to be fully vaccinated.”

Unvaccinated players aren’t allowed into Canada, which has been an issue in professional leagues like the NHL, NBA, and MLB. In those leagues, if an unvaccinated player can’t cross the border, he gets suspended without pay.

That won’t be the case in the NCAA.

Last November, SFU accepted an invitation to join the Lone Star Conference — an NCAA Division II football conference — as an affiliate member. Central Washington and Western Oregon joined SFU from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, given just three NCAA Division II football schools remained in the Pacific Northwest.

“When the Lone Star Conference invited us to join the conference last November we all hoped that the travel restrictions would ease by now,” said Theresa Hanson, Senior Director of Athletics and Recreation at SFU, in an email to Daily Hive.

“As we understand, the schools would not be able to field a respective team with enough fully vaccinated players to travel to Canada. We are very disappointed for our student-athletes, but the priority was to ensure we can provide a full season of training and competition for them. We are looking forward to creating a home-field atmosphere in Blaine for these games.”

SFU will play the first game of its season, on September 17 against Central Washington, at their Burnaby campus. Their remaining four conference games, against three teams from Texas and one from New Mexico, will be played at Blaine High School’s stadium — a short drive south of the Canadian border.

Their non-conference game against Montana State-Northern on September 10 has been cancelled entirely.

SFU Stadium will get used for the Shrum Bowl, an annual exhibition game against their cross-town rivals from UBC, on December 2.

SFU played just two home games in 2021, following a cancelled 2020 season.

The stadium in Blaine is located 45 kilometres south of SFU’s Burnaby campus, featuring an artificial turf field and covered seating for 2,000 fans. Just how many fans will make that trek from SFU remains to be seen though.

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