Tina Arlidge: "It's devastating. Our role is to deliver netball in Hawke's Bay. That's what we do." Photo / File
Tina Arlidge: "It's devastating. Our role is to deliver netball in Hawke's Bay. That's what we do." Photo / File
Netball has joined the list of Covid-casualties with what Hawke's Bay association general manager Tina Arlidge calls a "devastating" decision to cancel its grand finals weekend.
Involving more than 50 teams, and with 5000 games staged during the season, the club finals were to have been played in a newfestival atmosphere at the Mitre 10 Regional Sports Park courts in Hastings on August 21, the first Saturday of the Covid-19 Delta lockdown.
Hopes were they would eventually still be able to take place, but Arlidge said on Thursday it would be impossible to go ahead in the confines of Delta alert level 2, and it would have needed level 1 or no constraints at all for the big day to go ahead.
With other factors emerging - including the onset of summer sports - she expressed the "devastation" she felt for everyone by adding: "Our role is to deliver netball in Hawke's Bay. That's what we do."
But HB Netball still plans to complete three top grades in the controllable environment of the Pettigrew Green Arena in Taradale, without spectators and limited to players and officials only.
The Super 8 Premier semifinals are now scheduled for Saturday September 18, and two high schools' Super 12 finals on Tuesday September 21.
The decision was one of the big ones in Hawke's Bay following the lowering of the alert levels on Wednesday, highlighting the difficulties still facing event organisers, says Kevin Murphy, who is the Napier City Council events manager and New Zealand Events Association chairman.
Napier City Council events manager Kevin Murphy says despite some Covid cancellations many events have been given new dates. Photo / File
Several events of importance to the accommodation and hospitality industry in Hawke's Bay were scrapped during the level 4 and 3 lockdowns, and what would have been one of the big weekends over the next few days is now largely a non-event.
Four Hawke's Bay Magpies matches from the lockdown, including a national rugby Premiership match and Ranfurly Shield defence against North Harbour at McLean Park, Napier, on Friday night (September 10) are postponed until dates yet to be announced.
The opening day of the Hawke's Bay Spring Racing Carnival has been put back a week from Saturday (September 11) to September 18, and the Hastings Blossom Festival, which was to have taken over the streets of Hastings this Saturday, is now tentatively rescheduled for October 9.
The events association has postponed its own conference and awards which were to have been held in Napier and Hastings on September 30-October 1. They're now on December 14-15.
Plans for the Hawke's Bay Arts Festival on October 16-31 are continuing, but Murphy said details of what can happen in the new level 2 were still to be received, while the vagaries of a levels 2 and 1 combination, and movements in and out of Auckland, could "make or break" many events around the country.
"In general we have had cancellations but many have been able to make new dates," he said. "The challenge now is that details [of the new level 2] seem to be slow being confirmed, and we don't know if level 1 will be a new level 1."
