The Columbia Bible College Bearcats women's basketball team is now playing the waiting game to figure out what's next after the Vancouver Island University Mariners women's basketball team declined to compete in Abbotsford on Friday (Jan. 10) and Saturday (Jan. 11).
The games have officially been postponed for now.
CBC officials stated that after the Pacwest completes its investigation into what happened the last time the two teams played, the games will either be rescheduled or a result will be determined. There is no timetable on when the investigation will be completed, but CBC officials said they anticipate that to happen soon.
explaining that they believed the environment at CBC's Columbia Place would be unsafe. They also stated they would like to see Bearcats head coach Taylor Claggett punished and the provincial championship tournament to be moved from CBC. They are scheduled to be hosting that event later this year.
Statement from related to the WBB no show
鈥� Ben Lypka (@BenLypka)
They said the concerns originate back to a pair of alleged incidents that occurred during the Mariners and CBC Bearcats women's basketball games in Nanaimo in October.
Mariners player Harriette Mackenzie, a transgender woman, claimed that CBC women's head coach Taylor Claggett went on a 鈥渢irade鈥� after losing on Oct. 25, yelling at a Mariners staff member about how Mackenzie shouldn鈥檛 be allowed to play against women. A social media account linked to Claggett also posted anti-trans messages after the game.
The two sides played again on Oct. 26 and Mackenzie claimed her opponents physically targeted her. She shared a video from the game where, away from the ball, a Columbia player tosses Mackenzie to the ground.
Mackenzie filed a complaint with the Pacwest conference and it was stated that CBC, VIU and the league would investigate the incidents. That investigation is still ongoing and the Mariners team was not satisfied with the progress made. That letter was shared on Jan. 7 Pacwest officials said the investigation is ongoing.
Players on the women's basketball have released a letter responding to some of the claims by women's basketball players.
鈥� Ben Lypka (@BenLypka)
They state that the Mariners have violated social media and do not have justification for refusing to play last weekend
The Bearcats players then released a letter on Friday (Jan. 10) expressing their belief that the Mariners players violated the league's social media policy since the alleged incident and stated that the team did not handle their refusal to play games properly.
Players said that Mariners players engaged in personal attacks, defamatory comments and showed a lack of respect to the Pacwest on social media postings.
"Any and all allegations made by VIU players regarding our team and coach should have been directly communicated to Pacwest officials alone, they should not have been uploaded publicly to social media," the letter said.
They stated that those social media attacks have caused an emotional toll on Claggett and the rest of the team. The News did ask the CBC players for examples of some of those social media posts, but the players did not provide them.
The letter also questioned the reasoning behind the postponement of the games.
"In the past when a team has refused to participate and travel to a scheduled game they have received zero points in the classification. By postponing the games this weekend Pacwest has contradicted the standard operating procedure. There has been no clear rationale provided to our team to justify this departure from normal procedures.There has been no clear rationale provided to our team to justify this departure from normal procedures."
Derek Rogusky, CBC's Chief Financial Officer, did say that VIU informed CBC on Wednesday (Jan. 8) that the women's team would not be participating in Abbotsford. He said the players questioning of the postponement comes from the team not giving an official reason for the no-show.
"They simply said they weren't coming," he said. "We could all make inferences based on what we were seeing on Instagram. But normally in these kinds of cases of a postponement it is travel issues or an illness running through the team. But they didn't give an official reason, in fairness to them we all sort of knew why."
Rogusky also confirmed that the Pacwest does not have a rule where if a team postpones two games in a row then that team's season is cancelled, noting that is a FIBA rule. He added that CBC is ready and willing to host Pacwest provincials later this year, but that final decision for a host will be made by league officials.
"We're operating under the understanding that we're hosting these games," he said.
He pointed out that the VIU Mariners men's basketball team played against the CBC Bearcats men's team on Friday and Saturday. VIU took a 79-72 win on Friday and a 103-59 victory on Saturday. Rogusky said it was a positive weekend on the court.
"There were a lot of fans out 鈥� particularly on Friday and there is always a lot of energy in the room," he said. "I think everyone enjoyed themselves, including the VIU players and coaches. Abbotsford is a welcoming community and teams enjoy playing here."
The VIU men's and women's volleyball teams will compete with the CBC teams this weekend and Rogusky said he anticipates more good competition between the two schools.
The News did reach out to VIU and the Pacwest for comment, but in both cases were referred to statements released last week.
The students' union has commented on the protest. They also invited the men's team to join in the protest.
鈥� Ben Lypka (@BenLypka)
My understanding is the men's team will be traveling to for tomorrow's games
Statement from the (the investigation of incidents that took place on Oct. 25/26 is STILL ongoing) 鈥�
鈥� Ben Lypka (@BenLypka)
