APA has made the very difficult decision to cancel our Juniors Program indefinitely after the 2024 Junior Championships in St. Louis, Mo.
The timing of our Junior Championships has always been a significant challenge for our organization with the event falling between World Qualifier season, which runs through late June, and packing for the World Pool Championships which takes place in mid-July. Also taking into consideration the end of the Canadian school year in late June, and the July 4th holiday in the U.S., it made the scheduling of this event extremely difficult.
We believe in the concept of promoting APA to players of all ages, and we’re very proud of bringing joy and competition to many junior players over the years. However, junior players have different needs than most adults, and APA simply does not have a well-designed system for minors/juniors.
There are stringent requirements related to many of today’s youth activity programs. As we looked at ways to implement best practices in youth sports activities to best ensure the safety of our Junior members, we came to the conclusion that we’re not currently positioned to meet those needs.
The cancellation of the Juniors Program and Championship will not impact this year’s Junior Championships event scheduled for June 29 – July 2, 2024.
We understand this decision will come as a disappointment to many of our Junior members, and many of the volunteers who’ve donated their time to making this program viable, but we felt strongly that this was the best course of action for our organization at this time.
Our hope is that at some point in the future, APA will be able to re-introduce a Juniors Program that meets the requirements of today’s youth sports programs, and also meets the needs of our organization.