The Orange Holiday Classic survived through many challenges.

The boys basketball tournament that annually starts a day or two after Christmas, has been played for 55 consecutive years through venue changes and other challenges.

The tournament will not get to 56 consecutive years, at least not this coming season. The half-dozen or so out-of-state teams that fill berths in the 16-team tournament won’t be traveling to Orange County this season due to COVID-19 concerns and the revised basketball schedule for teams in the CIF Southern Section.

“We’re going to take a year off,” said Orange athletic director Alicia Seevers, “and maybe go with something smaller.”

That something smaller could be a single-day showcase at Orange High, the site of the Orange Holiday Classic the past few years. The tournament was played at Orange’s Quonset hut-style gym in its early days, has been played for many years at Chapman University and also for a few seasons at Hope International in Fullerton.

Tournaments, whatever the sport, are crucial fundraisers for high school teams and programs. Entry fees, snack bar sales and admission tickets create significant revenue.

Orange was thinking about the tournament snack bar and ticket sales when it called off the Orange Holiday Classic.

“Ours is a big fundraiser for the whole athletic department,” Seevers said. “But who knows if fans would be allowed into the gym?”

The North Orange County Championships, hosted by Sonora, usually is a mid-December boys basketball tournament. Sonora coach Mike Murphy said the plan is for the NOCC to be played April 5-10, pending administration approval.

The NOCC entry fee is $525 a team with a five-game guarantee.

“We might not make any money at all if we can’t have fans at the games,” Murphy said. “But we still want to have the tournament.”

The Mater Dei-hosted Nike Extravaganza for many years has been Orange County boys basketball’s top showcase event. (A showcase is a one- or two-day event, with teams playing once or at the most twice over the two days, unlike a tournament at which teams play multiple opponents over a few days.) Usually held in late January or early February at Mater Dei, the Nike Extravaganza is scheduled for May 14-15 at Mater Dei.

“The Extravaganza is going to more of a Southern California event,” said Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight. “Oak Hill Academy (of Virginia) and St. Patrick’s (of New Jersey) are out because we didn’t know if we could afford to fly them out and we don’t know what their situation is going to be. The Las Vegas teams (Coronado and Bishop Gorman) don’t know if they can come.”

Mater Dei’s boys basketball team played several out-of-state games last season but will not play out of state this coming season, a plan set in place before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring.

Villa Park’s boys basketball team was scheduled to play this season in tournaments at Las Vegas and Santa Barbara.

“But now travelling probably is not going to happen,” said Villa Park coach Kevin Reynolds. “We’re trying to figure out how we’re going to get a full 28 games in.”

Ocean View’s annual boys basketball tournament is scheduled to begin March 15, three days after the season officially stats in the Southern Section. Long known as the Tournament of Champions, the event in recent years has been called the Jim Harris Classic in honor of Ocean View’s late coach who was the school’s first and only coach for many years.

The Troy Classic girls basketball tournament is scheduled for March 22-27. Its lineup includes Etiwanda, La Jolla Country Day, Mater Dei, Sierra Canyon and Troy, making it something of a preview of the CIF State Open Division playoffs.

The Carew Classic, annually one of the state’s top softball tournaments, is set for March 31-April 3 at Peralta Park in Anaheim. The Carew Classic was canceled this past spring because of COVID-19.

The Carew tournament is a fundraiser for Canyon High athletics.

“Our snack bar is a big part of the fundraising,” said Carew Classic tournament director Lance Eddy, “but we probably can’t be barbecuing out in the open, so there will be a lot of prepackaged food we’ll sell.”

Baseball tournaments are adjusting to the new schedule, too. The season-opening, 80-team Newport Elks Tournament that usually starts in early March will start April 8, a couple of weeks after the March 19 start of the season.

The Newport Elks Tournament annually coincides with the Loara Tournament as the county’s two largest season-opening baseball tournaments. The Loara Tournament will start April 9 this coming season.

The plan is for Elks and Loara tournament games to be played on alternating days so their tournament games are not played on the same day as the other tournament’s games.

The Boras Classic South tournament, which always has the most state- and nationally-ranked teams of any baseball tournament in Orange County, is set for April 6-9 at Mater Dei and JSerra.

Newport Elks Tournament director Vince Brown, who recently announced his retirement from coaching at Foothill, said leaders of the many Orange County baseball tournaments have worked together on their schedules.

“We’re trying to talk and figure it out,” Brown said, “so we’re not throwing ourselves on top of each other.”