Student-Athlete's Guide to OFSAA Championships Grades 9-12 2026-27

You are eligible for no more than five consecutive years from the date you enter Grade 9. OFSAA's 2026-27 age classification notice states there is no appeal to this regulation.

Students with an IPRC identifying a developmental disability who remain in school after age 18 (up to the current age limit of 21) can be eligible for no more than seven consecutive years from entry to Grade 9, and can take part in all OFSAA sports except boys' football, girls' and boys' hockey, girls' and boys' rugby, co-ed wrestling, boys' lacrosse, girls' field hockey, alpine skiing and snowboard racing.

Source: OFSAA Age Classifications for the 2026-27 School Year; OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(a)(vi) and (xi).

• Fewer than 22 credits earned: you must be taking courses that make you a full-time student under the Ministry of Education definition. In a traditional school that is at least six full-day credit courses. In a semestered school it is at least three full-day credit courses in the semester in which you participate.
• 22 credits earned: you must be taking four non-semestered full-day credit courses over the school year, or two full-day credit courses in the semester in which you participate.
• Exemption: you may be exempted if you have an accommodated timetable or course load directed by a regulated mental health professional (such as a psychiatrist, psychologist or clinical psychiatric nurse) and supported by medical documentation. The request, with a letter from the professional, must go to the Association for approval before or during the competition season. You must then be registered in at least two full-day credit courses (non-semestered school) or one (semestered school) in the semester you participate.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(d).

You reach OFSAA through your school's athletic association, not directly. Membership in an Association, and following that Association's by-laws and regulations, is a prerequisite for taking part in any OFSAA championship. To represent your school you must be eligible under your Association's rules, certified as eligible by your principal, and meet the OFSAA eligibility rules in this guide.

• Each Association is entitled to representation at each OFSAA championship. How many entries it gets is set in each sport's Playing Regulations.
• Associations must confirm their entries by these deadlines or forfeit them: September 30 (e.g. girls' field hockey, cross country, boys' volleyball, girls' basketball, golf, tennis; boys' football is September 15), December 1 (e.g. nordic and alpine skiing, wrestling, swimming, boys' basketball, girls' volleyball, hockey, curling, snowboarding), and April 1 (e.g. badminton, rugby, soccer, track and field, baseball, boys' field lacrosse, ultimate, girls' slo-pitch).
• Team sports can receive additional entries, chosen from the previous year's medal-winning Associations, with a maximum of two entries per Association (a third only if needed).
• OFSAA championships run for no more than three school days.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulations D and E.

A team is all the student-athletes from one school who qualify for OFSAA competition as a unit, and every member must be eligible for the team to be eligible.

• OFSAA team-sport championships only involve teams that used OFSAA-eligible student-athletes in all competition during the school year. A team that uses an ineligible student-athlete in any competition that year forfeits the right to take part in the OFSAA championship. "Competition" means any time two teams play each other on a playing surface, in Ontario or elsewhere, not just league play.
• Teams deemed to have competed in any league not governed by their school athletic association are ineligible for the OFSAA championship in that same school year.
• The team sports are field hockey, football, basketball, volleyball, hockey, curling, baseball, rugby, field lacrosse, soccer, ultimate and slo-pitch.
• Two schools can field one team only if they have an official co-participation arrangement for a sport the smaller school does not offer, one school has under 150 students (under 240 for football), and the schools share facilities or are close together.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 3.

No school may include in its line-up any student who has been registered as a transfer from another school within the previous 12 months. The Transfer Policy applies to all students transferring into Ontario high schools, and OFSAA adopted it in 1986.

• Once you have changed schools you are considered a transfer student, even if you later return to a school you left. You must still comply with the policy.
• Students who attended an alternative school or program and return to the school they attended before are not transfer students, as long as they did not play sports while at the alternative school or program.
• Students transferring from other provinces, states or countries are ineligible for OFSAA competition if they have graduated from high school or equivalent, or have used their years of athletic eligibility where they came from.
• Students moving from a school in a strike or lock-out area are ineligible for all sports played in the previous 12 months, from their date of entry to the new school.
• If you have played for a school prep/elite team and then transfer, you cannot apply under the "no interschool sport in 12 months" ground (b)(i), and you are treated as having played that sport at the interschool level for the other grounds in (b).

Source: OFSAA Transfer Policy at September 2026 and OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(g).

The Transfers Committee may rule a student eligible under these criteria (the Committee decides at its sole discretion, and producing documents does not guarantee eligibility):

• (a) Change of residence or system: you and your immediate family completely and permanently moved to a new permanent residence (outside the sending school's board boundaries, or closer to the receiving school); you moved to Ontario from outside Canada and the United States; your former school closed; or a school board placed you (the board-placement ground can be used only once during your eligibility unless the transfer relates to student safety).
• (b) No interschool sport: you did not play any interschool sport in the 12 months before the transfer (not available to students in their first year of Grade 9); or you accept ineligibility but ask for eligibility in sports you did not play in those 12 months; or you were away from your previous school for less than a school year and are returning, without playing interschool sport meanwhile. Written confirmation from the previous school is required.
• (c) Placement or programs: an IPRC placement; a move from an independent school because of an educational exceptionality it could not accommodate; completion of an English or English Dialect Learner program where the board requires the move; or a move to a French-language school for a rights-holder or admitted student.
• (d) Exceptional circumstances: a move before Grade 10 for exceptional personal, social or academic reasons; living with a custodial parent or new court-appointed guardian; leaving an abusive home; leaving an independent school because of financial hardship; bullying where the sending school agreed a transfer was in your best interests; or a regulated mental health professional's recommendation.

The Committee will not consider as reasons for transfer the relative ranking of schools, differences in course delivery, or that a sport or team is no longer offered at your previous school. Refugee students are not treated as transfer students and are eligible for all sports for their first two years from their date of entry into school.

Source: OFSAA Transfer Policy at September 2026.

• All transfer students are ineligible for OFSAA competition until cleared by their Association Transfer Appeal Board or the OFSAA Transfers Committee.
• Appeals go in writing through your coach to the Association Transfer Appeal Board, and through that Board to the OFSAA Transfers Committee. OFSAA only accepts an appeal if you were denied eligibility at the Association level.
• A school representative (athletic designate, administrator or student services staff) sends the application by email with the student's name, the school name, the representative's name and the principal's name. Hearings are held virtually.
• Fee: $50 per appeal. The Transfer Policy says it is refundable if the appeal is successful.
• Decisions of the Transfers Committee are final.

2026-27 OFSAA Transfers Committee meetings (meeting date, application deadline):

OFSAA encourages filing early in the school year, including for winter and spring sports.

Sources: OFSAA Transfer Policy at September 2026; OFSAA Transfer Meeting Information page (2026-27).

• A student may only play on one team in the same sport (team or individual) at the OFSAA level during a school year.
• If you play on a school prep/elite team and are then no longer on that team but stay at the school, you are ineligible for the bona fide school team for the current school year and the following school year. A school prep/elite team is a team that represents the school in competition and/or is under the oversight of the school administration.
• Transfer Policy: no student may participate in the same sport for more than one school in the same league or municipality in the same school year, unless the Transfers Committee rules the student eligible under section (a) of the Transfer Policy. "Participate" includes exhibition games and invitational tournaments, not just league play.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(a)(x) and 4(b); OFSAA Transfer Policy at September 2026.

To represent your school at an OFSAA championship you must have:

• executed the OFSAA Release of Liability form, where required;
• signed the Rules of Behaviour form for the competition;
• confirmed in writing, on the OFSAA form provided, that you and your parent or guardian (if you are under 18) have reviewed the concussion awareness resource and the OFSAA concussion code of conduct within the previous 12 months, as required by Rowan's Law. Students in badminton, cross country, golf and tennis are exempt from the concussion requirement.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(a)(vii) to (ix).

You become ineligible for OFSAA competition in all sports for the rest of your high school career if you:

• registered at a post-secondary institution and attended one full term or semester, or
• practised or played, or attended a try-out, with an intercollegiate team at a post-secondary institution,

and then returned to any high school.

Source: OFSAA Regulations (September 2026), Regulation E, Section 4(f).