ST. ALBANS, W.Va. — As the football season cranks up for 2022, one team will not get to enjoy the roar of the crowd . The Little Dragons of St. Albans had to cancel the season after all of their equipment was stolen earlier this year.
A break-in at a storage building at McKinley Middle School back in April cost the team almost all of their helmets, shoulder pads, and uniforms.
Amber Roy is the league secretary and said ironically money wasn’t the problem.
“We did a lot of fundraising and we had a few private people donate to us, but the big one was the Kanawha County Commission agreed to pay the price of what it would cost to replace the equipment. That was amazing and wonderful,” said Roy.
Roy said the meeting where the commission made the decision in April was joyful and full of tears. It was only when she started to get bids from the equipment makers, like Riddell, that the problems began to surface.
“We found out the suppliers had stopped taking orders, even before our stuff was stolen. We can’t order anything until September,” she said.
Suppliers have had to halt orders because of problems in the supply chain to get the components to make football helmets. Roy said helmets are in high demand and Riddell and other companies have been hampered in getting all of the different components from the suppliers like the resin, padding, face masks. Roy added Riddell was trying to recover from a fire earlier this year which wiped out one of its major manufacturing locations as well.
Although the league plans to place the order in September and get the gear for next season, this season had to be scrubbed. It was a heart-breaker for everybody involved. There are four teams in the Little Dragons. There is another, separate team in St. Albans called the Scarlet Dragons, which plays in a different league. Roy said they’ve told the players who have asked for options to consider playing for the Scarlet Dragons or to consider close teams who are in the same league for the 2022 season.
“I hate that it’s come to this and not being able to have a season for these kids. It really does suck,” she said.