Australia says the same. I still think they are pursuing an elimination strategy based on what I read and hear from our teammate who lives there.
Which is why I said they should have anticipated this and had contingency plans including moving it to an area that is was least likely to have issue much sooner.
We have thousands of cases in Canada each day and the medical community is losing their minds because provinces are reopening to fast. That doesn't sound much like an elimination strategy to me.
Even where I live which has almost no cases, our MOH keeps saying we don't have an elimination strategy and we open up as health care capacity and epidemiology allows (just FYI....things are very open here. We are at 75% capacity opening of everything and have had in-person school since Sept.)
Re Skate Canada:
1. How do you know they didn't try to move the event?
2. Where could they move it to?
The earliest they could anticipate problems would have been summer.
As we have already said, rinks across the country were still closed in summer.
Public health was inundated with Back to School plans at that time and the the upcoming Hockey season discussions were in full-swing.
Skate Canada would have known for sure by October when Skate Canada was cancelled. But again, where to move it?
By October the only obvious place to move it was Alberta and they were planning the World Junior Hockey, all the other Hockey leagues seasons were a mess, ice-time was in high demand and any team that had any was not planning to move out for skating.
Hockey season schedules are developed months in advance. They need lead time to schedule the teams away from the arenas so other events can happen.
Also, detailed public health safety plans have to be submitted months in advance to Public Health to get approval for any event to take place.
Honestly, by the time the Skate Canada knew it was time to seek a new venue, it was too late.