Basketball teams call foul on Saskatoon Rec League's no kids policy

Bringing children to watch games has landed two rec-league basketball teams in Saskatoon on the sidelines.

Michelle Vilar says they were unfairly treated by the Saskatoon Rec League when they were kicked out and banned from all activities for bringing their children to games.

Vilar said she had been attending for five weeks when she got an email from the league manager stating kids are not allowed at games.

“They had said in their email ‘we are not a daycare’ which I was pretty taken aback by,” adding her kids were always supervised and there was nothing stated in the league’s online waiver about the no kids policy.

“He also said that it was a complete circus, which it was never.”

In a statement, league manager Dain Renkas said the league’s insurance doesn’t cover children and when they became aware that kids were attending games they informed both teams that is not allowed.

“They chose to disregard this and brought children to the next game so we had no choice but to remove them from the schedule to ensure it did not happen again,” the statement read.

Vilar believes they were unfairly singled out and only chose to ignore the league warning after learning the information had not been shared with the other league teams.

“If we would have completely been aware that this league doesn’t promote that, or have the insurance to promote that, than we would not have joined,” Vilar said.

The league said it has since updated the rules and refunded both teams.

-with files from Ashley Wills.