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| Dennis
April 30, 2013
11:26:37 AM
Entry #: 4052165
| This year, the Edmonton area is hosting both the Softball Alberta Provincial and Softball Canada National Championships in Men’s and Women’s Slo-Pitch.
Provincials will be July 19-21 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) at Centennial Park in Sherwood Park. As long as I’ve been involved with umpiring, slo-pitch provincials only included ‘A’ level category, but this year, ‘B’ and ‘C’ levels have been added. I’m happy to see that as it will encourage more teams to participate (in women’s, the number of teams that enter ‘A’ level have been declining because two teams consistently dominate all the others, and last year, only those two teams actually entered). It would be nice to see co-ed added in the future.
If any teams (male only or female only) are interested in entering, please see the Softball Alberta website. There are no regional play-downs for provincial slo-pitch all that is required to enter is having a valid team roster, registering properly, and paying the entry fee. Also, teams need to be affiliated with Softball Alberta, and since our league is affiliated with NSA (iirc), an affiliation fee would also be charged. Proper/complete uniforms will be required for play, and games will be played under ‘full’ Softball Canada rules (e.g. they’ll be strict on the pitching rules, the lead-off rule will be the official one rather than our house rule, etc.).
I would encourage people to get out and watch some of the games. No gate fees will be charged, and there is some very high caliber ball played at championships. Playing schedules are normally posted on the Softball Alberta website a week or two before the event.
www.softballalberta.ca/events/provincials%20sub%20index.asp
Nationals will be held in Leduc in August. Men’s ‘A’ will run Aug 10-16, and Women’s ‘A’ will run Aug 12-16. This will be an even higher level of ball than provincials, so there should be some really good ball to watch. I'm not sure if there will be a gate fee (that's up to the host, and I haven't heard anything yet). There isn’t much information yet on the Softball Canada website.
http://championship.softball.ca/slopitch/
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