Saskatchewan Roughriders head coach Craig Dickenson wants his team to reach the league’s 85 percent vaccination threshold soon.
The CFL has introduced a policy that will apply to any game cancellations caused by COVID-19 issues. According to the policy, if a game cannot be played as scheduled because of a coronavirus outbreak, and it cannot be rescheduled:
- If one club is suffering from the COVID-19 issues, that club will forfeit the game and be assigned a loss while its’ opponent will be credited with a win by a score of 1-0.
- If both clubs are suffering from the COVID-19 issues, then both clubs will forfeit the game and be assigned a loss.
In both of these circumstances, if a team can prove that 85 percent of its players under contract have been vaccinated, at least once and preferably fully, its players will receive their salary for the cancelled game. If the team falls below that 85 percent threshold, the entire team will not receive its salary.
“They definitely mean business. When you read that memo, there’s not a lot of grey area. We shared that with the players and our guys know it’s for real. They’re not messing around, they want to see 85 percent of the team vaccinated,” Dickenson said.
“This is going to be a way I think you’ll see the teams that maybe aren’t there, they’ll get there relatively fast. When players start to see that financially they could take a pretty big hit if we’re not at 85, I think you’re going to see a lot of guys get the shot.”
As of the league-wide roster cutdown on Friday, July 30 there were 79 percent of CFL players fully or partially vaccinated. Three CFL teams have more than 85 percent of their players vaccinated. The other six teams have vaccination rates ranging from 67 percent to 81 percent.
“I would be willing to tell you we’re close, we’re not one of those three yet, but we’re going to be there soon. We’re encouraging them to go. We work for the CFL, and whenever you work for someone, you have to follow the rules and guidelines they give you,” Dickenson said.
“The vaccinations have proven that it helps people avoid going to the hospital because of COVID-19. We have the best interests of our players in mind when we encourage them to get vaccinated and I think they know that.”
Playing is precluded by a decision from a government health authority. The league’s cancellation policy states a game will be cancelled if a team does not have 36 players to dress for the game; a team does not have an individual available to coach the offence and another individual to coach the defence; a team does not have a certified athletic therapist and sports medicine physician available for the game.
“When they decide the rules, it’s up to us if we want to follow them, and if we don’t, we don’t have to necessarily have that job. So I think most people here really love the CFL, love playing the game and are willing to do what we need to do to play. That’s what I hope most of our team feels like,” Dickenson said.
“Anytime you have the haves and the have nots, whether it be money, vaccination, whatever, you risk dividing the room. We’ve tried to be very open-minded and very understanding of those that maybe for some reason or another don’t want to get vaccinated, but we want to encourage them. The main reason is we want them all to be healthy and safe.”
