Organizers of Canada Cup football tournament book charter buses after incident on LRT

Organizers of a national sports tournament taking place in Edmonton this month had hoped to take advantage of the LRT to transport players and coaches to events, but an incident last weekend with one of the teams has forced them to change course.

About 400 players, parents and coaching staff representing eight football teams from eight provinces are taking part in Canada Cup.

The event is a tournament for the best high school-aged football players in the country.

The executive director of Football Alberta, the host of the event, says the organization made the commitment to use the LRT in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly.

"We wanted to make an environmental commitment as well as the LRT is extremely convenient to all of our facilities at Clarke, Commonwealth, Lister Hall, the downtown hotels, Foote Field, you name it," Tim Enger told CTV News Edmonton.

But last Saturday, members of Team Alberta were waiting at the South Campus/Fort Edmonton Park LRT station when there was an incident.

"They were approached by someone who was quite agitated and eventually produced allegedly a weapon, and our team vacated the property pretty quickly after that."

Enger said Football Alberta immediately made the decision to pivot to charter buses.

"Within three hours we had everything rebooked on these charter buses."

Enger said he doesn't know how much the decision will cost the organization in the long run.

Football Alberta's Tim Enger speaks to Nahreman Issa. (Nahreman Issa/CTV News Edmonton)

"A lot of money. The whole event is about $700,000, the additional charge here, we'll find out at the end," he said.

"We're not worried about the cost right now, we're worried about making sure that our athletes and coaching staff are safe. But it’ll definitely be more than a few thousand dollars we'll have to recoup."

He said the incident is unfortunate.

"There were some provinces that did express concern coming into the tournament, and we assured them that in our mind, things were acceptable."

"It's disappointing for the most part. I feel horrible for the city, I feel horrible for Edmonton Events we've been working with. These are great partners of ours who are great supporters of this."

'NO ONE IS PANICKING'

The head coach of Team Quebec said his organization isn't fazed by the incident.

"You never want to be in that type of event, but at the same time, most of our players are coming from Montreal, we also have a metro, so those are the type of stories we kind of see once and a while in our neighbourhood," Alex Surprenant said. "No one is panicking on our side, that's for sure."

Alex Surprenant (Nahreman Issa/CTV News Edmonton)

Team Quebec is preparing for the gold medal game on Saturday, and Surprenant said the team is having a good time in Edmonton.

"It's great! We have fun, Alberta is doing a good job to receive us, we've had two good games so far. So far, so good for us."

In a statement to CTV News, the City of Edmonton says it takes transit safety seriously, adding that big cities across Canada are facing similar challenges.

"Across Canada, cities are facing significant safety challenges largely caused by the pandemic, opioid crisis and housing challenges. In response, the City of Edmonton is using multiple tools and tactics to improve safety, perception of safety, well-being and integration of services in transit spaces."

Enger said he hopes to see safety improvements soon.

Football Alberta will host the world cup next year, and Enger is hoping to take advantage of the transit system for the event.

"We'll sit down and we'll talk [with the city] about ways of making sure this thing flies, because there's so much good to the LRT. It's not the LRT’s fault. It's the way our society is kind of rolling out right now."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa