Montréal-Sherbrooke game will proceed after Carabins have no further positive COVID-19 tests

Photo courtesy: Carabins Athletics

The Université de Montréal and Université de Sherbrooke are officially set to kick-off the 2021 U Sports football season at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Their game was originally slated for 2:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, but a member of the Carabins testing positive for COVID-19 put the game in question.

As per a team release, fifteen players were contacts of the player who tested positive on Friday. Each were administered a test on Saturday morning and returned a negative result. Had any yielded a positive result, the game would have been cancelled.

All of the players involved were fully-vaccinated.

The Carabins were concerned that Montréal’s regional public health department would only allow the fifteen players to participate if they were masked throughout the game, which the team considered untenable. Instead, they are being permitted to play wearing a full visor provided they are masked on the bench.

The game will now proceed at a delayed time of 4:00 p.m. ET.

Saturday’s game between the Montréal Carabins and Sherbrooke Vert et Or is the first U Sports football game played since the Vanier Cup in 2019 as the 2020 season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The University of Calgary Dinos won a national title in November 2019 at Telus Stadium in Quebec City with a 27-13 win over the Université de Montréal Carabins.

McGill University is set to take on Université Laval on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET in the second game of the U Sports season-opening weekend.

The AUS doesn’t get underway until Friday, Sept. 10, while Canada West open its season on Sunday, Sept. 12, and the OUA kicks-off on Saturday, Sept. 18.