OTTAWA- For the second consecutive year the Baseball Canada Cup will take place in beautiful Kindersley, SK which gets underway on August 11th. Once again each of the 10 provinces will field select teams that will compete for a National Championship.
Tournament Co-Chair Joanne Kosolofski is extremely excited about this year’s event and says that everyone from players to parents and fans can expect a great week at the ballpark.
“I think that everyone can expect to have a great time,” explained Kosolofski. “We have a lot of events planned at the ballpark that we are excited about.”
One such event that Kosolofski highlighted was the silent auction that will take place on August 13th at Berard Field which is one of two diamonds that will be used to host tournament games. The auction will be used as a fundraiser to help re-build the city's arena which burnt down this past winter. Among some of the item's featured will be: a Vernon Wells autographed baseball, Milwaukee Brewers autographed memorabilia and items from Baseball Canada. In addition to the silent auction, fans can also expect giveaways, great tournament food and autographs from participating teams.
On the baseball side of things defending champion British Columbia will once again contend for the title as they bring a veteran team to Kindersley. BC returns six players from last year’s champions including Justin Atkinson (Surrey, BC), Jerod Bartnik (Surrey, BC), Kevin Biro (Deep Bay, BC), Nicholas Pivetta (Victoria, BC), Tom Robson (Ladner, BC) and Matthew Trimble (Coquitlam, BC). Atkinson, Pivetta and Robson were also members of the Canadian Junior National Team that recently claimed 4th place at the World Championships in Thunder Bay.
Challenging BC in Pool A will be last year’s runners-up in Team Québec, the bronze medal winners Team Ontario and Team New Brunswick.
Fresh off of a 4th place finish a year ago, Team Alberta will be looking to make their way back into Pool A in Kindersley. They will have their work cut-out for them however as only one player returns from last year’s team in Markus Fergusson (Edmonton, AB). Also, the likes of Saskatchewan with the hometown crowd behind them and Manitoba will look to make a name for themselves. Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland round out the field in Pool B and will be counted on to play spoilers and make some noise of their own.
Round-robin play will commence on August 11th and run through until August 14th. Play-off games will start late in the afternoon on August 14th and conclude with the Gold Medal game the evening of August 15th.
For news, stats and live, up-to-the-minute scoring of the Baseball Canada Cup please visit: http://www.baseball.ca/cup/
