Host for the 8th ISF Junior Men’s World Championships

From the Whitehorse Daily Star Newspaper:

Photo by Jon Molson

MR. SOFTBALL – George Arcand, the tournament chairman for June’s ISF Junior Men’s World Softball Championships.

Hosting a softball tournament involves a team effort, much like playing the game itself. George Arcand knows this all too well.

The long-time player and member of Softball Yukon has helped organize softball tournaments of all sizes in the Yukon for more than 20 years.

Since the creation of the Pepsi Softball Centre around 25 years ago, the City of Whitehorse has been able to offer a first-rate facility for participants in the sport.

Tournaments featuring local, regional and out-of-territory competition have all been held over this period of time, but the one event that has yet to be hosted in the community is an international competition.

On June 20-29 this will change, as Whitehorse is set to hold the ISF Junior Men’s World Softball Championships.

“I think the experience we have had over 20 years or 25 years of running championships, dustball tournaments and other things has given us the expertise to be able to do this,” said Arcand, who is the executive director of Softball Yukon and tournament chairman for the world junior event.

“We have a wealth of people that have put on championships here. Although not worlds they are still championships.”

This will be an historic occasion for the world junior men’s tournament as well as the City of Whitehorse.

The tournament will feature the largest number of teams since it was originally held 13 years ago.

In total 12 countries will be represented at the event, including three-time defending champion Australia, as well as Argentina, Botswana, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States and Venezuela.

Each team will feature the very best male players aged 19 and under from their respective countries.

The previous highest total at this competition was nine countries.

Canada has performed very well in the past at this event, highlighted by winning the bronze medal at the World Championships in 2005 in Summerside, P.E.I.; in 2001 in Sydney, Australia; and in 1997 in St. Johns Newfoundland.

The country’s last gold medal was won in 1993, when Canada defeated host country New Zealand in the Grand Final.

The competition will use a round robin format and each of the twelve teams will play against one another, starting on June 20 and concluding on the 27th.

The top four countries will advance to the page playoff, which will be held on June 28. The third and fourth place teams will square off, immediately followed by a second playoff game between the two top teams.

The winner of the latter will earn a direct berth to the Grand Final, while the losing team will meet the winner of the first playoff game to determine who will move on to play for the gold medal.

Softball Yukon has been preparing for the championship since making the initial bid around two years ago.

Currently, the organization is working on everything from talking to the teams about the necessary preparations for things such as living arrangements during their stay in Whitehorse, to additional renovations that are needed improve the Pepsi Centre for the championships.

The renovations involve work on the bleachers, sundeck, batting cages and on the fields.

The work began last summer and it will pick up once the snow melts and the ground thaws.

There are around 25 planning volunteers working on the preparations at the moment, but Softball Yukon hopes to increase this number after an upcoming meeting, scheduled for April 16.

The meeting will be held at the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel at 7 p.m. and will be open to the public.

Softball Yukon is co-hosting with the Whitehorse Co-ed Softball League by combining their annual meet and greet with the league’s spring registration meeting.

Interested individuals can sign up as volunteers on the organization’s website at http://www.softballyukon.com.

The only challenge the organization has had to deal with was a shorter amount of time to prepare because the International Softball Federation (ISF) awarded a host city a year later than it traditionally is decided.

Arcand said this wasn’t a major challenge to overcome, and it just involved bringing on more people, who are familiar with the process of hosting softball tournaments.

It also meant doing a little more initial prep work to make up for the lost time.

“There is a blessing in that, I didn’t have to spend another year working on it,” Arcand joked. “So it all works.”

Past ball tournaments that have been held in Whitehorse include the National Western Canadian Championships.

This event has been hosted in the city nearly 30 times.

Additionally, the annual Dustball tournament is held every July. Arcand said hosting these events helped with the ISF’s decision to award Whitehorse with the world junior men’s championships.

“We have hosted a number of different championships over the years and we have a facility that’s a really good one,” he said.

“We are also a city that is known to be able to host. Obviously, Canada Games proved that in a bigger way.

So all of those things said, I think the international people like to see it come to Canada.

They were intrigued by it coming North of 60 and it’s actually proven to be right because there is a whole lot of people coming.

This is the biggest junior championship in men’s that they have ever had by numbers of teams, so that tells us that people like the location and are interested in coming here.”

Although this will be the most prestigious softball championship to ever come to Whitehorse, it will not be the largest ball tournament the city has hosted.

The annual Dustball tournament always generates more participation, which can include around 65 teams in total.

It is the largest in terms of the budget though, which is currently at $671,000.

The championship is expected to bring approximately 600 tourists to Whitehorse for the 10-day event.

Among the tourists will include players and parents. Arcand said there will be a few community benefits to hosting this event.

“There will probably be a $2 million impact financially on the community, somewhere in that neighbourhood,” he said.

“From the ball point of view, we are going to see some of the best young ball players in men’s the world has to offer, so from a pure entertainment value it will be awesome.

We are bringing the show to town and it will have an impact and hopefully everybody can benefit some way from it.”

Arcand said they will know if the tournament was a success after the conclusion of the championships.

“On the 30th of June, I will know it’s all good,” he said.

“It’s typical of any ball tournament, once the first pitch is thrown, then you basically take it away from the organizers and you turn it over to the players.

That’s going to happen and then you become a support to the players.

Up until now, we have become an organizer for the players, so that’s sort of how it works and when it is all over we can relax.”

He said he is confident about being able to make this a successful event.

“I don’t see how it could go wrong,” Arcand said.

“We will do our end and everybody here will do their job and if everybody else from the world shows up it will work.

It is no different to organizing anything else, nothing ever goes exactly as planned, so you just need to be prepared to bend and make it work.”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 20th, 2008 at 5:50 am and is filed under General, ISF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.