Baseball diamonds in Lethbridge would usually be seeing plenty of action at this time of the year, but with COVID-19 restrictions putting a stop to sports across the province, this month, that hasn’t been the case.
Prairie Baseball Academy (PBA) head coach Todd Hubka said his field has never been in better shape.
This time of year is also when Hubka does the bulk of his preparations for the fall.
“We’re on the computer and looking at kids through video,” he said.
“You know this is our time of year when we do a lot of our recruiting, where we’re going to baseball games and looking at kids.”
PBA was set to host the 2020 Canadian College World Series starting May 14, but the Canadian College Baseball Conference announced on March 17 that both the championship tournament and the season had been cancelled.
“Our varsity team started in mid-February, and we did a couple of U.S. trips and we were learning lots and building… getting ready to host the championship here in May,” he said.
“It’s disappointing, these kids put a lot of work in.”
On Thursday, it was bad news for little league players too.
Little League International announced that for the first time in nearly 75 years, the Little League World Series has been cancelled, along with all regional Little League tournaments.
Denny Puszkar coached the Lethbridge Intermediate AAA Bisons in the historic tournament in 2019, after winning the Canadian Little League title.
Puszkar said the city’s baseball-crazy community is having a hard time without the sport.
“Most people that I talk to are really missing it,” he said.
“It’s tough now you know. I try to talk to my kids a lot about, ‘let’s go and play catch in the park and do things like that’.
“But that’s tough to get motivated day after day, to do that without friends and teammates.”
The Lethbridge Bulls are also on hold as the Western Canadian Baseball League (WCBL) continues to monitor provincial and federal health guidelines.
On Thursday afternoon the WCBL released an update which said the season will be postponed –at least — until late June or early July.
“The contingency plan is that worst-case scenario,” said WCBL and Lethbridge Bulls President Kevin Kvame.
“An early July start would be the latest that we would be looking at and try to get in a month-and-a-half or a two month season.”
Kvame hired a new head coach for the Lethbridge Bulls in November, with Kregg Snook being announced as Jesse Sawyer’s replacement.
Kvame said getting Kregg and many of the Bulls’ players to Lethbridge could also be an issue for the WCBL season, with many teams relying on Americans to fill their rosters.
“Kregg’s down in Houston staying in touch with the players and watching things as they go,” Kvame said.
“There’s another challenge, because of course we have the U.S. border restrictions right now, and we have to see whether it would be relaxed enough to allow the players and coaches to come to Canada.”
Kvame is also the President and CEO of Little League Alberta, which is expected to provide another update on a possible Little League season.
Previously Little League Alberta’s District 1 had said that June 1 would be the soonest that kids could hit the fields.
Another update is expected regarding Little League in southern Alberta in the coming days.
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