As stressful as it was for students at UNBC wondering if their semester was going to be ruined by a faculty strike that finally ended Friday after more than three weeks, the routine of living up to their commitments as varsity athletes gave the Timberwolves basketball teams a slice of normalcy in an otherwise chaotic time.
While they didn't like crossing picket lines to get to their practices and games at the Northern Sport Centre, the chance to stick to their schedules as basketball players offered a needed distraction which kept their frustrated minds off what they were missing with their academic futures held hostage by a labour dispute beyond their control.
"It gave us a bit of a support system," said T-wolves women's team point guard Emily Holmes. "You talked to others about it and had your coaches and teammates, so it gave some sense of normalcy and it kind of brought us together to kind of stay focused on basketball. We still had that and had to continue training and practicing and playing games so we stuck together and used that as a positive reinforcement to try and manage the strike as best we could."
The T-wolves men's and women's teams drew the bye and had no games this weekend as other Canada West teams played their final games leading into the Christmas break. Holmes said student still doesn't know when the semester will end and whether they'll be writing exams in January to make up for the lost time.
"We're happy we're getting the chance to go back and the bottom line is we're getting credit for the semester and that's what's important, especially for our graduating players," said Holmes, a 22-year-old history major.
"We didn't know for a while but it was so far into the semester they were trying to make sure we weren't at any risk of losing credit for our courses. It's still a bit stressful figuring out how the rest of the semester is going to work, if we're going to have exams or if the semester is going to be pushed into January."
While Holmes is from Prince George, she knows students from out of town remain unclear if their travel plans to go home for Christmas will be disrupted.
"There's an option that they might omit exams and continue classes to the 14th, we don't really know yet," she said. "As far as we know, we're in class on Monday. I think it will be more up to professors and students sorting things out within class as to how they want to proceed with finals and grades."
The T-wolves don't play again until Jan. 3 when they resume their U Sports Canada West schedule in Calgary against the University of Calgary Dinos.
"We were the only school (on strike) so it's been a bit of different year and a different time playing but we've all made it through so we'll see how things go in the next two weeks," said Holmes. "Hopefully we can get back on track and things will have cleared up for January."
