Robin Short, Telegram Sports Editor, newspaper of St. John’s Newfoundland. Among the rumors that he has also heard is the possibility of Newfoundland bidding for the 2013 Sr. Canadians. (The tournament will be moving east from Owen Sound to Fredericton in 2012)
The column is titled “Nobody asked me, but….”
They’re beating each other up at the World Cup of Rugby in New Zealand, where the Canadian roster features a pair of Newfoundlanders — Ciaran Hearn of C.B.S. and Frank Walsh of St. John’s. Hearn’s a starter, while Walsh was listed as a reserve in the opening game against Tonga. At the FIBA Americas Championship basketball tournament earlier this month in Argentina, where Canada tried — with little success — to qualify for the London Olympics, Carl English of the Cape Shore suited up for the overwhelmed Canadians. There are no Newfoundlanders on the national baseball team, a scattered one every now and again on the national junior hockey team, zilch on Canada’s soccer or volleyball teams, and certainly not a Newf to be seen on the national ski (downhill and cross-country), speed skating or sledding (bob, luge or skeleton) teams. Yet there are eight — eight! — Newfoundlanders either on or part of the national senior men’s softball team program. So, have we gotten that good at fastpitch, or is the game on the mainland regressed a tad? Just wondering …
Keeping with fastpitch, there’s a chance St. John’s might go after the 2013 national senior men’s tournament, but given the current format of the Canadian championship, softball might want to think twice. The recent nationals in Owen Sound, Ont., like some sort of peewee house league tourney, had every team making the playoffs, essentially making the round-robin a series of exhibition games. Newfoundland sports fans aren’t stupid, and the casual fans — the diehards will be there game in, game out — won’t be duped into laying down a 20-spot for a game that doesn’t really mean a whole lot. So if, for example, Ontario elects to rest their top pitchers for the playoffs, and Newfoundland goes down in flames Friday night, what does that do to the gate over the weekend? And one more thing. How can ball players from B.C. play with New Brunswick, and Albertans with Ontario, and Ontario guys with Newfoundland, and Newfoundlanders with Ontario, and everyone else with P.E.I., and Softball Canada whistles dixie, dubbing the tournament the ‘nationals’? From this corner, the whole thing makes little sense …
Good comentary, by Robin Short. Why would anybody pay $12.00 per day for a ticket to watch a bunch of exhibition or warm up games. Believe the same format was used at the Junior Canadians in Napanee.