Whether it's Saturday afternoon cricket or a mid-week game of touch rugby, community sport is woven into the social fabric of New Zealand.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
But just how those activities might look this summer remained unclear as the government rolled out the new Covid-19 vaccination certificate.
Every summer, throughout New Zealand, more than 200 community touch rugby competitions fill our local sports fields.
But Touch New Zealand CEO Joe Sprangers feared many of those competitions wouldn't go ahead, if strict control was required when it came time for the traffic light system.
"Touch modules are 99 percent run by volunteers, who do it for the love of the sport," he said.
"It will just go into the too-hard basket for them. They just won't have the manpower to do it, and they don't want to risk having police turn up and tell them they're getting it wrong."
That uncertainty was a theme across national and local organisations as the country prepared to move into the new Covid Protection Framework at the end of the month.
It wasn't yet known if the vaccination pass would be mandated for community sport - or how the sector would be required to implement it.
Along with other codes, New Zealand Cricket's head of community cricket, Kent Stead, was urging the government and Sport NZ to provide answers.
"One thing we're really trying to find some clarity on is where community sport sits.
"Under the current framework it sits within "gatherings" but we feel if there was a specific category that related to community sport it would help to provide far more clarity around mandates and what can and can't be done for community sport."
Touch rugby. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/Photosport
As they did everywhere else, mandates in community sport also threw up the question of the unvaccinated.
Stead admitted there was no simple solution.
"There's a challenging position that you get yourself into where you're putting barriers in the way of people participating.
"But at the same time there's a responsibility to make sure the community is safe."
Sport New Zealand provided guidance under the current system but insisted decisions on vaccination were for each organisation to make.
The government agency said they were still formulating their advice for the traffic light system, and wouldn't comment further until the system was in place.
One organisation that wasn't waiting was North Harbour Rugby, who had confirmed they would be putting a mandate in place.
The union's operations manager, Nick Mulvaney, said their expectation was the mandate would apply to anyone on the field of play.
"That's your players, coaches, managers, referees - anybody who is associated with those teams, those are the people we can control who have to be vaccinated.
"Any public people walking into the facilities and the public parks and things like that, we have no control over that and council have indicated they've got no desire to try and enforce that, in any way."
St Albans Cricket Club in Christchurch. Photo: Photosport
That issue of who sporting organisations would be able to control was also front of mind for Touch NZ CEO Joe Sprangers.
"A community touch module is generally run on 10-acre piece of grass with no fences around it.
"If you are going to mandate vaccination for people attending that then there is the practical application of actually managing the people on the site, when they can approach it from multiple angles."
Another unanswered question was that of post-game socialising.
Most organisations expected clubrooms to fall under a government mandate on hospitality facilities, and New Zealand Cricket's Kent Stead is optimistic that after-match beverage would still be possible.
"The socialising and camaraderie that comes along with playing a social sport is a key aspect that attracts people to it and also keeps people coming back every year.
"We don't want to see that disappear from sport but we have to make sure we are doing it in a safe way."
It was just what those "safe ways" would be that remained unknown as the start of the traffic light system and use of the vaccination certificate loomed closer.
Gordon Noble-Campbell, chairman of the New Zealand Amateur Sport Association, was hoping the solutions would be as simple and specific as possible.
"National Sport Organisation will be very keen to ensure that whatever is the impact of any change to their current operating environment can be applied easily and efficiently in the community so everybody can continue to enjoy sport."
Those organisations hoped they would have the answers for New Zealand's everyday athletes sooner rather than later.