The Bermuda Basketball Association remains hopeful that the indoor 2021 Winter League season can be salvaged.

The season was originally due to commence last month but was unable to after Government shut down all sporting activity early last December to combat a spike in positive Covid-19 cases on the island.

The association was also forced to pull the plug on its Fall League, which was due to commence last September as a result of Covid-19 protocols.

However, they are keeping their fingers crossed that they will receive the green light to launch the Winter League by the end of the month, which would provide them with ample time to get the full quota of games originally scheduled completed.

“If we can get access to it [indoor facilities] by the end of the month, I don’t see anything changing,” Tim Trott, the BBA secretary-general, said. “But if it goes any longer then more than likely the games will probably be reduced.”

A revised schedule could also potentially see the play-offs revert to a single elimination format.

“I’m thinking with an odd number of seven teams, a team might not make the play-offs, and so more than likely the top two teams will probably get a bye in the first round and just do straight knockout,” Trott said. “No two, three-game series, just straight knockout.”

He added: “I think once they [Government] give us the go ahead, as long as we can access a venue, we’ll probably need about two weeks to get everything set up just in keeping with the safety protocols and all that just to make sure that we have ourselves organised.

“We don’t want to go in half way and then next thing you know someone comes and sees something wrong and then they shut us down again.”

Non-exempt gatherings have been increased from a maximum of ten to 25 after the Government moved to stage two of its four-stage plan to return to sporting activity, paving the way for basketball teams to return to full training.However, Trott said teams have been unable to capitalise thus far because of lack of facilities.“One of the venues we want to use is CedarBridge Academy and because that is a government venue we are not allowed to use that yet,” he added. “We have been renting Somersfield Academy off and on and we’re hoping to get a couple of training sessions in for teams in preparation for the league.

“The organiser of the league [BBA vice-president Joshua Nesbitt] is actually going to Somersfield to confirm that we can actually access it. I don’t know if that has been confirmed yet or not, but that’s the plan.”