St. FX disciplines all student-athletes after some broke COVID-19 rules

St. Francis Xavier University is taking away practice and training privileges for all of its student-athletes after someattended a large off-campus party last weekend.

"Among the many attendees were student-athletes from pretty much every team," said St. FX athletic director Leo MacPherson.

School administration saidall students attending the party broke COVID-19 gathering rules as more than 50 people were in attendance.

All student-athletes at the school, whether they attended the party or not, are subject to the discipline for two weeks.

"It was a bit of a failure in leadership and they know they shouldn't have been there," said MacPherson. "It was a disappointment to us."

There is no official Atlantic University Sport competition during the fall semester, but teams can practise.

"We see this as a teachable moment," said MacPherson, who is also a former St. FX student athlete.

"So we thought to think about their actions, maybe they should take two weeks off and, hopefully, coming out of this, we'll have the leadership and the model behaviour that we're looking for."

RCMP say a 23-year-old woman from Ontario was charged under the Health Protection Act for failing to self-isolateafter police attended several large house parties in Antigonish over the weekend.

Antigonish RCMP also charged three people at parties for failing to physically distance.

Four people were also charged under the Liquor Act and one person was charged under the town of Antigonish's noise bylaw.