The Spy Hill Sports Days and rodeo has been put on hold for the 2021 season.
Jeff Odgers, president of the Spy Hill Community Club that helps organize the Spy Hill Sports Days, says the club is waiting for COVID-19 restrictions to lift.
“Like most things we don’t know where we’re at right now. We’re kind of waiting to see how things play out here with the reopening that’s just been announced. We would love for our Spy Hill Sports Days and rodeo to take place. We missed out last year and we’re one of the oldest running rodeos in the province and we definitely want to get back to it,” Odgers said.
“As of right now we still haven’t come to a decision if we’re having it or not. We would be having it that second weekend in August, so we do have some time to get it together if it looks like we could have the event.”
Like other rodeo committees in Saskatchewan, the current group size restrictions are creating a hurdle for the Spy Hill Community Club.
Odgers says that group sizes would need to allow around 200 spectators for the event to break even.
“You have to have so many people at the event with paid attendance to make it worthwhile. As far as international riders, it doesn’t really affect us. Most of our competitors are from Saskatchewan and Manitoba. We have that interprovincial thing going on that we’ll have to deal with but I think more than anything it’s the number of people you can have at the event. You need a certain amount of people with a certain amount of revenue to make it make sense.”
Odgers notes that with the 2020 rodeo being cancelled, the Spy Hill Community Club was able to cancel the event before it affected them financially.
“We were able to cancel our rodeo far enough out that we weren’t any money out, per se. But we definitely missed the revenue coming in that it creates for us every year but as far as costing us money, we were pretty lucky that we could get out of it,” said Odgers.
Odgers notes that the rodeo is a community event that he hopes will be able to happen this year, but for now, the Spy Hill Community Club plans to wait for restrictions to lift before beginning planning.
“The minute we can get back, get out, and start seeing our friends and everything our events are going to be packed because we’ve been starved for how long? We haven’t been able to do anything,” Odgers said.
