The president of the Sarnia Minor Athletic Association (SMAA) is hopeful Doug Ford will open up baseball diamonds, soccer fields, basketball courts, and other outdoor playing fields.
Lynn LeFaive agrees completely with Ontario Soccer's request to the province to rescind its ban on organized outdoor sports.
"SMAA offers boys baseball, girls fastball, and football, all house-league sports, and our youth in this community need to get out onto those fields," she said. "For younger people, it builds great citizenship, it builds great sportsmanship, but we need to have them outside. They're running, they're exercising, they're experiencing life."
LeFaive said she's optimistic that things will improve following the June 2 stay-at-home-order deadline.
"There was no reason to shutdown golf courses or anything like that," she said. "It's outdoors, people need to be outdoors. We've had enough of this lockdown, and the youth in the community definitely need to be outside."
LeFaive believes SMAA will be able to have a shortened season, adding that there's still interest in the community for organized outdoor sports.
"Our boys baseball is down a little bit, but overall I'm going to say we have roughly 400 already looking to play, girls is down right now, because they're not too sure whether they should register. Last year, they all registered. We had over 1,000 register only to have to cancel and refund everything."
LaFaive said she's hopeful they'll see a jump in registration once the province lifts its ban.