Add local athletes to the long list of people feeling the pain from job action taken by Saskatchewan teachers.
Teachers across the province have taken three days off work to date and on Monday, they rolled out their next move by withdrawing all voluntary services.
That includes coaching school teams, which means coaches can't have contact with their players and extracurricular activities are not allowed on school grounds.
That has resulted in the cancellation of the Estevan Elecs' annual football spring camp, which was supposed to open two days ago at the team's practice field at ECS.
"It's very frustrating, but what do you do?" said Elecs head coach Marco Ricci on Monday.
The team had been exploring other options for the camp last week, but it became clear it wasn't going to work.
The main field at Woodlawn is still believed to be partly underwater. The practice field across the highway is in relatively good shape, but the access area is waterlogged.
Ricci said he was holding out a faint bit of hope that something would work out by the end of June, but he was not optimistic.
"If an agreement doesn't happen soon, there'll probably be nothing until fall comes around."
The camp was expected to attract close to 50 players, and losing it is a major blow for a fledgling program like the Elecs.
"We're still trying to recruit young athletes. We not only don't have that opportunity to be in the school to talk to the players, now we don't have the opportunity to show them what football can be all about before they come back to school."
It was announced early Tuesday morning that the two sides in the dispute had agreed to mediation and that teachers were temporarily lifting the voluntary services ban.
It remained to be seen how this would affect the spring camp as of press time.
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Local track and field athletes are also disappointed after the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association cancelled the provincial championship last Friday.
The provincials were scheduled to run this weekend in Regina.
In a news release, the SHSAA said the decision was made in part due to the withdrawal of voluntary services as well as possible non-refundable hotel fees, citing "the uncertainty of the contract talks and the possibility that the sanctions may remain in place while talks are being held."
The Â鶹´«Ã½AV East District Athletic Association would have had a problem even if the provincials had gone ahead.
Friday's district meet in Weyburn was cancelled due to a wet track. Saturday was the last possible day to hold it before the sanctions kicked in, but the track was "just waterlogged," according to ECS athletic director Nathan Johnson.
"It worked out that we were going to be able to hold it (before the teachers' action) but the rain overnight in Weyburn drenched the track," he said.
If the provincials had gone ahead, the plan would have been to use sub-district results to determine qualifiers, but that also would have been problematic due to the disparity among tracks in the region.
Johnson estimated that 10-15 athletes from Estevan would have advanced to provincials had they gone ahead.
