One Letter Says It All: “Z”

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From

Revised Field of Teams for the 2007 Vancouver Challenge

Vancouver, BC

The Vancouver Grey Sox and South Hill Sports are pleased to announce a revised slate of teams for the 6th Annual Vancouver Challenge Tournament to be held July 27 – 29 at South Memorial Park in Vancouver.

As announced previously the host Grey Sox currently ranked 10th by the International Softball Congress, will face stiff competition from the Broken Bow New York Gremlins (ISC # 3), So Cal Bombers -Yucaipa California (ISC # 7), Portland, Oregon Demarini (ISC # 13) and the Richmond, BC Linus Software Stealers (unranked).

The organizing committee for the Vancouver Challenge were recently approached by the Horse Lake, Alberta Thunder in hopes of joining our event. As you are most likely aware the Horse Lake squad is attending the upcoming ISC World Tournament in Kitchener. Although our tournament draw had already been completed and announced publically, along with much of the advance work in place, for the betterment of the sport of mens fastpitch we felt it appropriate to make some last minute alterations to accomodate the request and include the Horse Lake team in our event. The Thunder, who are led by fastpitch legend Darren Zack are most appreciative of our willingness to permit them to join the Vancouver Challenge at a very late date, and look forward to competing next weekend in Vancouver. As a result a revised draw will be released in the next 24 hours.

The event has historically attracted good quality teams, providing an excellent tune up prior to the ISC World Tournament, and the Softball Canada Nationals. Past tournament champions include: 2006 – Vancouver Grey Sox, 2005 – Broken Bow NY Spirit, 2004 – Victoria Travellers Inn, 2003 – Vancouver Grey Sox, 2002 – Victoria Fine Line.

We are again very pleased with the high quality teams that are coming to Vancouver for this event, which we anticipate will result in some interesting and well played contests, involving several of the elite players in the sport of mens fastpitch.

Action kicks off Friday July 27th with a single game when the host Grey Sox tangle with the Richmond, BC Linus Software Stealers at 7:00 pm. A full slate of games commences at 8:00 am on Saturday July 28th, with the final game of the day set to start at 8:00 pm. Sunday July 29th the action starts again at 8:00 am with the Championship Game scheduled for 2:00pm. As mentioned previously a revised draw will be issued shortly. Admission is $5.00 per day or $10.00 for a tournament pass – children under 12 are admitted free. All games are to be played at South Memorial Park in Vancouver, located at 5950 Prince Albert Street (41st Avenue East – between Knight and Fraser Streets).

Larry Kancs
President
Vancouver Grey Sox
www.vancouvergreysox.com
vancouverchallenge@hotmail.com

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Kitchener, Broken Bow, and Patsy’s came away winners on opening night, while the host Orillia Riversharks won a pair at the World Series of Fastball Friday night.

Vancouver, Jarvis, Aspen and Pueblo suffered opening night losses, while Midland dropped a couple of close ones, to the # 2 and # 3 ranked teams in the world, Patsy’s and Broken Bow.

Al Doran is in attendance and posting scores and updates regularly via his Blackberry. Click here to follow all the action at Orillia at Al’s World Series of Fastball page.

Play resumes Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. with a full slate of games on tap. The final game of the day is set to begin at 8:45pm, with the playoff round starting on Sunday morning at 9:00am.
The tournament features a “Candian” division and an “American” division, with five teams in each.

The feature matchups of the day on Saturday will be ISC World # 2 vs. # 3, Patsy’s vs. Broken Bow in the American division at 2:30pm, and # 1 Orillia Riversharks vs. # 4 Kitchener Hallman Twins, in the Canadian division at 6:45pm in the evening. All game times are EST, adjust accordingly.

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Editor’s note: Al Doran will be attending this one in person, so be sure to follow his reports at Al’s Fastball. (Click logo below). He’ll be posting scores and more via his Blackberry on his Orillia tournament page.

From

[Orillia, Ontario, Canada] – With under 24 hours to go until the first pitch is thrown at the 10th Annual World Series of Fastball the park is taking shape. The stands are in place, all the fencing is complete, the tents are up and the diamonds look absoulutly great. All that remains is all the last minute things that will have our entire committee running around all day Friday to make sure that every little detail is looked after.

The World Series of Fastball has always had the reputation as one of the most difficult invitational tournaments to win and this year’s line-up of teams will put that reputation to the
test again. With 8 of the top 10 ISC ranked teams in attendance, the tournament title is wide open this year. If the top 8 teams take either of the other 2 teams lightly they may find themselves in a hole as both Midland Explorers and Pueblo Bandits are quite capable of jumping up and taking games away from the higher ranked teams.

All ten teams will see action tomorrow night with the Canadian division kicking things off at 5:00 PM with Vancouver taking on Kitchener and the host River Sharks against Jarvis. At 7:00
PM Saskatoon plays their first game against the River Sharks and the 1st game of the American division gets under way with Midland, MI taking on the Broken Bow Gremlins. At 9:00 PM, the
Pueblo Bandits make their first ever appearance at the World Series of Fastball against local favorite, the Farm Tavern.

In the last game of the night Midland will take on Patsy’s of New York. Round Robin games continue throughout the day on Saturday with the playoff games starting at 9:00 AM on Sunday. Al Doran will be on-site all weekend making regular updates of all the games.

The latest weather forecast calls for a fairly good weekend with tempatures in the low 20’s, mainly sunny with a slight chance of a shower on Saturday.

All in all, it looks to be an absolutely great weekend of elite fastball action that will feature probably the most competitive field of teams in the World Sereies of Fastball history. The tournament title is wide open and whoever emerges will have had to be at their very best all weekend.

See you at Kitchener Park starting at 5:00 PM tomorrow night.

Paul Barnetson
World Series of Fastball
pbarnetson(at)city.orillia.on.ca
www.city.orillia.on.ca/worldseries