No all-class state wrestling this week is another sign of the times we're living in, but let's keep making the best of it

So winter finally came. It finally looks and feels like basketball and wrestling season right now. Not that I wanted this weather to show up because I didn’t, but it now really feels like the winter sports season.

It feels that way, but today is still anything but feeling normal.

If it was normal, if there was no pandemic going on, I’d be braving the snowy, icy, cold roads between Havre and Billings right now, headed for another All-Class State Tournament, preceded by a dual between the Lights and Argos. If it were normal, I and thousands of others would be traveling today, headed to Billings for what is one of the largest sporting events in Montana each year, and one of the best state wrestling tournaments in the country.

Alas, what I wouldn’t give for things to be normal. But they’re not, and that means no trip to Billings, no all-class tourney, no packed Metra, none of it. Not this year.

It’s so weird to think back now, too. Looking back at the 2020 state tourney in Billings, I remember talking about the coronavirus, which hadn’t shown up in Montana yet. I remember asking others, if they thought it might be among the more than 10,000 people inside the Metra that weekend. Maybe it was already at Red Lobster or Olive Garden, the mall or elsewhere. I at least wondered. And yet, back then, I never, ever thought it possible what would happen over the next 12 months.

Not long after state wrestling the world changed, as we all now know. But even back in march and April, as scary, crazy and unusual as those times were, I certainly didn’t think in February of 2020 that there would be no all-class state tournament. I never imagined that the pandemic would get this bad and last this long.

But here we are. It’s the week that state wrestling and state swimming is normally held in Montana. It’s traditionally the beginning of the end of the winter sports season. As a sports editor, from state wrestling week through mid-March, it’s literally some of the most exciting sports action in Montana each and every year.

COVID-19, however, has changed all that.

Instead of going to Billings this weekend, wrestling is still finishing up the regular season. So, too, is swimming. And when state week finally comes, there will be no trip to Billings. Instead, Class AA, A and B-C will be split into three separate tournaments, in three different Montana towns. Swimming will be separated, too.

No doubt, it’s different, and it certainly won’t feel normal, but it’s where we are, and it’s what we have to do in order to still give our student-athletes and coaches the best postseason experience we can possibly give them. Like most things that have come during this pandemic, we just have to do what we have to do to get through it.

That’s what I’ve done. I’ve already coached a sport during the pandemic, and the postseason was anything but normal. I’ve now been covering sports during the pandemic for six months and rarely has a day in my sports editor life been normal, either. And when I get to coach tennis this spring, I know it won’t be normal, either.

What I do know is, I have been and I’ll continue to make the best out of it. I’ll continue to work as hard as I can to keep our sports pages churning out great coverage of our local teams and athletes, and I’ll do anything and everything I can to give our Havre High tennis kids the best, safest experience they can have during spring sports. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make that happen.

And that’s what we all need to do for our winter sports athletes as they head toward the postseason. No state wrestling in March in gyms in Miles City and Shelby won’t be what we’re used to. It won’t be the same as all being together in the Metra. And while I’m bummed I'm not headed to Billings today, it’s where we are. This is what we have to do. It may not be what we want to do, but it’s what we have to do.

So while we’ll have to wait to get back together in Billings in 2022, I’m still excited for all our winter sports athletes and coaches as the postseasons draw near. It’s almost time for the 9C tourney, for state wrestling and state swimming, and for postseason basketball.

Even with the challenges of playing through a global pandemic, even with things not being what we're used to, we’re doing it. We did it in the fall and we’re doing it now. And we will make it to the end. We will have state tournaments.

Whether it’s normal or not, that’s a different story, but the exciting crescendo to winter sports is coming. It’s coming, and I can’t wait.