Canadian Wild Out For NPF Season Due To COVID-19 Concerns

The Canadian Wild will miss the 2020 NPF season due to COVID-19 concerns and travel restrictions, the league has announced.

The Wild, which feature several members of the Canadian women's national softball team, planned to use the NPF's early-season schedule this year as preparation for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. The Olympics have since been postponed to 2021.

Earlier this month, the Aussie Peppers also announced that they would miss the 2020 NPF season for similar reasons.

"Our greatest priority continues to be the health and well-being of the athletes and staff members of our teams through this unprecedented and challenging time," NPF Commissioner Cheri Kempf said in a statement. "With half the Olympic field participating in the NPF, we knew that 2020 would be a unique scheduling year for the league, but what we could not foresee was that our shining asset of global diversity would become an insurmountable complication due to the pandemic of COVID-19. We will continue to examine the potential for abbreviated competition in 2020 and certainly look forward to the return of both the Canadian Wild and the Aussie Peppers in 2021."

NPF officials recently announced an indefinite delay to the 2020 season, which was supposed to begin April 10. The league plans to announce further 2020 scheduling decisions on May 1.

The Wild finished the 2019 NPF season in third place with a record of 22-19.

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