Field Closures

As we get into the winter months we wanted to remind teams about the decision making process for closing of grass and turf fields.

  • Step 1 – Thursday around 3pm. The City of Surrey provides a field report indicating the status of the field as follows:
    • Open – field is playable
    • Closed – field is not playable 
    • Club Discretion – Depending on the weather between Thursday and the weekend the club can decide if the field is playable
  • Step 2 – The club continues to monitor the weather and impact on the grass fields between Thursday and the weekend. If conditions deteriorate we may change our home game schedule and cancel games
  • Step 3 – On the day of the game, the club head referee and game referee will make the final call on the playability of the field. There are three conditions that may result in the referee canceling the game on site:
    • Standing water – there are obvious puddles and the field is saturated
    • Snow – any snow accumulation
    • Frozen ground – generally measured by trying to penetrate the ground with a key. If the key can’t go into the ground, the field is generally too frozen to play on

If we anticipate frozen ground, we will try and schedule our kickoffs later in the day with the hope that the fields will warm up and thaw. 

We will always try and anticipate closures and communicate accordingly to avoid families coming out and wasting part of a day, only to find out the field is unplayable. 

Finally, we will try and spread the loss of games around the club so that teams have a similar amount of games to make up. We understand that all teams want to play every week and BC Tigers FC will do it’s best to make this happen, while protecting the fields for future use. Your patience and understanding is appreciated on weekends when cancellations occur.

Make-Up Game Process

Getting a cancelled game rescheduled is the responsibility of the teams. According to league guidelines, the home team should provide a couple of dates to the away team for the game. The away team should pick the one that works best for them. This often means playing a game on both Saturday and Sunday in one weekend.

Once the teams settle on a date (and Tigers is the home team), please email Neetu at bctigers@gmail.com to get the game rescheduled. The time will be confirmed when that week’s home game schedule is published. 

Please do not wait until the end of the season or when you ‘need’ to get a game in to move up the standings. Try and get your make up games played as soon as possible. Once again, it’s the teams responsibility to know their league rules around make up games. 

The priority for game scheduling is as follows:

  • Regularly scheduled cup games
  • Mandated make up cup games
  • Regularly schedule league games 
  • Make up cup games 
  • Make up league games 

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