Let There be Sports! Missoula Parks & Rec Leagues Begin in June
Man, the days have been dragging on. Things are slowly starting to return, or already have, but over the last couple months we've been without stores, school, concerts, services, events, sports, and more. So I was pretty excited to see this news from Missoula Parks & Recreation - they'll be able to operate their adult rec leagues this summer.
The Missoula City-County Health Department gave the thumbs up for Soccer, softball, sand volleyball and pickleball leagues to begin on June 15th.
Having played in the Missoula Parks & Rec leagues in the past I was sent a survey a couple of weeks ago as they collected information from league participants. Questions covered different possible situations and gauged interest on returning to play with the unknowns still surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of questions centered on willingness to play if certain physical interaction components were eliminated from the different sports. Some of the changes to the soccer league included no physical contact in guarding someone while you played defense, throw-ins to be done with kicks to eliminate touching the ball, and goalies only being allowed to use their feet.
A KPAX story includes comments from recreation program supervisor Meg Whicher about how the feedback from the surveys was used.
"Because we didn't want to run leagues that people weren't going to sign up for, you know? Overwhelmingly we had more people say that, listen, we don't care what you do, we just want to play. So if that means we'll have to play by funky rules, we're fine with that."
If you're ready to get back on the field, or sand, or court.......you can register for the upcoming summer leagues with Montana Parks & Rec HERE. Use the same link to see rule changes for each sport designed to follow COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.
It'll be nice to have rec sports return next month. But another thing to keep in mind is spectators will not be allowed at any of the games.