District 5 Tournament to relocate?

   It seems very likely that the District 5 Tournament will not be held at Windber in late February.
   Due to the ongoing construction project at WAHS, whether the gymnasium will be ready and the lack of parking because of it means the event will probably be held at a new location in 2016.
   Rumors have persisted regarding this for a few months, and I've had more than a handful of people in the past couple of weeks ask me about it.
   While nothing has been set in stone yet, there are two options that are reportedly being looked at.
— The tournament will be held at either Bedford, Chestnut Ridge, or North Star, and be run as a two-day event on February 26-27.
— The tournament will be a one-day event at UPJ on February 20. With this option, there would be a two-week break between the district and regional tournaments, as is the case each year with District 6-AA.
   I spoke with Bedford athletic director Dan Baker, who told me he hadn't yet been contacted about any such proposal, though he would welcome it with open arms. Of course, Bedford does hold the Thomas Subaru Tournament each January, which usually fields between 25 and 30 schools. Despite some drawbacks regarding seating, parking, and other variables, I think the Bedford people do an excellent job with it, and it would be a suitable alternative for the district tournament and its 12 teams. I would also think that Chestnut Ridge and North Star could be fine sites to use.
   In hindsight, if Everett had been able to construct a new gymnasium as part of its renovation project a couple of years ago, that probably would have been the alternative. At the time, before the gym idea was scrapped from the construction, I had all but confirmed that Everett and Windber would have held the district tournament on a rotational basis.