The eagerly awaited Canadian Accredited Independent Schools (CAIS) Tournament, hosted by Saltus Grammar School, has been brought forward to today and tomorrow to avoid Friday’s anticipated nearest approach of Hurricane Gonzalo.

The tournament, originally involving 22 schools and more than 500 players, coaches and spectators from Canada, was to be a three-day tournament for boys aged between 14 and 18.

Four teams were already on the Island yesterday, with 13 more scheduled to arrive yesterday.

However, the plans for the tournament changed significantly yesterday as Saltus waited to learn whether the remaining five teams would still be making the trip.

Either way, the tournament will now be a reduced format over two days instead of three.

“Because there are so many teams already travelling, and because the hurricane is now due to hit on Friday, what we’re going to do is hold a truncated tournament on Wednesday and Thursday so we can finish by Thursday evening and the teams can be in the safety of their hotel by Friday,” said Jon Beard, the deputy head of Saltus.

“Obviously if they want to turn around and go back out over the next couple of days, that is completely understandable as well.

“But they have come all this way and paid a lot of money for a tournament and what we want to do is still give them that experience.”

Five venues were originally booked but now pitches at the National Sports Centre and BFA Field will hold the matches, after Goose Gosling Field, suffered some damage from last weekend’s Tropical Storm Fay which caused considerable damage throughout the Island.

“From the response I’m getting, most of that five won’t fly, but we’re going to put football on for those coming in and give them the best time we can possibly give them,” said Beard, who added that he felt particularly disappointed for Darrin Lewis, the organiser and director of athletics at Saltus, who has worked tirelessly putting the tournament together.

“We were all looking forward to it and Darrin couldn’t have put any more work in if he tried.

“We all feel so bad for him because he had everything planned to precision. The only thing you can’t control is the weather and a hurricane at this time of the year wasn’t high on our list of things that could go wrong.

“We’re going to have to go into some night games to get everything in and will meet with the coaches this afternoon and confirm exactly what we’re doing.”

The Canadian schools taking part include Ridley College, Upper Canada College, St Andrews College, and Trinity College School.

The opening ceremony was set for the National Sports Centre today, but that has been cancelled as revised matches will be going on at that time.

The approaching hurricane could also disrupt this weekend’s games with Dudley Eve semi-finals matches, originally scheduled for Sunday, pushed back until next Thursday at Devonshire Recreation Club. Last weekend’s postponed Premier and First Division matches are now scheduled to take place on Sunday.

Damage to Goose Gosling Field means that the matches between BAA Wanderers and Paget Lions, and Flanagan’s Onions and Somerset Trojans are still to be confirmed.

n The Bermuda Bicycle Association’s IBC Front Street cycle races scheduled for Sunday are also at the mercy of the weather.

“We’re talking with the sponsor IBC and will see how things develop and try to make the call on Thursday,” said Peter Dunne, the president of the BBA.

“You never know if it [hurricane] is going to change direction. If it looks like it is going to hit us then we’ll deal with it, but we’ll wait a couple of days.”

Much of Hamilton has been cleaned up after the damage caused by Fay last weekend, but Gonzalo presents an other concern with residents taking this threat more seriously.

“Our concern is the next storm, not just what came through,” Dunne said. “We only use basically Front Street and I went through there this morning and it looks good.”