Following the announcement of the upcoming varsity review, McGill Athletics hosted a town hall on Nov. 7 to promote transparency for its club and varsity teams. Perry Karnofsky, Athletics Director of Wellness Programs and Facility Operations, and Daniel Méthot, Athletics Director of Sport Programs, led the meeting. 

Karnofsky and Méthot explained that the varsity review has three aims. The first is rebalancing programming and facility allocation between varsity teams, competitive clubs, and recreational activities. The second is consolidating all athletic programs under a single umbrella, which McGill Athletics claims will improve both the competitive athletic experience at McGill and the student experience at McGill’s Sports Complex. 

The third concern, which Karnofsky and Méthot emphasized, is that the review is fundamentally about capacity: With McGill’s current financial and athletic resources, Athletics’ focus is on how to allocate these limited resources most effectively.

Méthot then outlined the process that the review committee is using to reorganize the current varsity structure. McGill Athletics is moving from a three-tier system to a ‘four-group approach’ that aims to more fairly evaluate and accommodate varsity teams that do not align with the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) format. 

Currently, all teams in McGill’s three tiers of varsity status must compete in an RSEQ league. The differentiation between the groups is dependent on teams’ competition formats at the provincial and national levels. For instance, tier one sports must be represented at three academic levels across Quebec: High school, Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEP), and university level. Teams identified as tier one must also have a national championship, hosted by U SPORTS. Tier two includes sports that are represented at only the university level, but still have a national U SPORTS championship. Tier three also consists of sports that compete at the university level, but that only have an RSEQ provincial championship. 

While the review process has allowed for more open discussion among current varsity and club teams and McGill Athletics, some existing teams remain in a state of uncertainty and anxiety about getting cut.

Avery Berry, U1 Arts and Science, and forward on the Martlets Varsity Field Hockey team, shared in an interview with The Tribune that she is unsure where this leaves teams like hers. 

“We’re not in the RSEQ. We don’t recruit. We often don’t have as many home games, and we’re fully self-funded. So how [McGill Athletics] would take this into account in the auditing process was pretty unclear,” she stated.

Berry noted that McGill Athletics has not concretely communicated how the restructuring will affect teams, such as Field Hockey, in unique situations. If her team’s status changes, Berry explained, they risk losing key off-season resources such as access to the varsity weight room and Strength and Conditioning coaches, as well as crucial visibility and outreach tools like media exposure.

For club teams like McGill’s Nordic Ski Club, the review does not just determine their competitive level—it determines whether they can operate at all.

Nordic Ski Co-Captains Astrid Scarth-Lella, U3 Arts, and Molly Tinmouth, U3 Arts and Science, said in an interview with The Tribune that the uncertainty around the varsity review has been especially difficult for their team, in part because they feel McGill Athletics is not familiar enough with their club to make an informed decision about its status. 

“They don’t really know our training, our performance, or how we operate,” Scarth-Lella said. “They’ve been very unclear about how many teams are going to be cut or have their status changed.”

Tinmouth added that competitive clubs and teams feel pitted against each other, even though they all offer something vital to the student body.

Despite the administration’s attempts to foster open conversations on Nov. 7, many athletes did not get the answers they were looking for. The goal of the town hall was transparency, but the outcomes it discussed remain unpredictable. As teams await their fates, the potentially precarious future of the next season of McGill Athletics looms large.

Sports Editor Clara Smyrski is captain of the McGill Women’s Field Hockey team. She was not involved in the writing, editing, or publication of any section of this article that discusses Field Hockey.