Estevan has received a reminder that we can host outstanding baseball events.
The 2022 Western Canada Baseball Championships were held in the city from Thursday to Sunday. Fifteen teams were entered between three different divisions, providing lots of entertainment for spectators and many great memories for players, coaches, parents and anyone else in the Energy City for the competition.
You could tell something big was happening in the community. There were more people on the roads, while the parking lots for hotels and restaurants were full. You could see the team buses travelling around the city.
There was a level of excitement for this event. Of course, it helped that Estevan had strong teams. The Estevan TS&M U13 AA Brewers won the tournament, giving Estevan its second Western Canadian championship. It’s hard to believe that the kids on the U13 Brewers weren’t born when Estevan won its last Westerns title in 2008.
The Estevan U15 AA Brewers made it to the tournament final, an impressive feat for a team that didn’t practice together until last Wednesday. And the Estevan Aero Advertising U18 AA Brewers came within a win of reaching the final.
But the success of the weekend went beyond the results.
Not that long ago, Estevan was a place to host marquee baseball events. We have Western Canadians for U13, U15 and girls baseball in 2004. It was the first time a city of Estevan’s size had been awarded three Western Canadian championships.
Four years later, we had Westerns for U18 and U15 AAA baseball.
And Estevan hosted a number of big provincial competitions over the years, often with two or three different levels being decided.
But for whatever reason, those events didn’t happen for a while. The 2016 Saskatchewan Summer Games were here, and they were obviously great, with Team South East winning the gold.
But that was the exception.
We had two provincial tournaments here last year, and another provincial event this year. Each of those had several different levels decided. They provided a boost for the hospitality sector as we emerged from the pandemic restrictions, and they offered lots of lessons as Estevan prepared to host Westerns.
It takes a lot of hard work to host provincials, especially when several divisions are involved, or a Western Canadian event. You need a lot of volunteers. They need to be ready to put in long days, often in the summer heat. And you never know when you’ll have to contend with a thunderstorm or rain that will force you to rearrange your schedule.
Adding to the challenge of this year’s event was using two ballparks instead of one.
But when you can host an ambitious provincial or Western Canadian championship, there are big dividends.
We don’t expect to see a Western Canadian event here every year, and we don’t expect to have another one here for a while. But after this weekend, everyone knows we can do it again.
And it was all part of a busy weekend in Estevan. The Dieppe anniversary presentation, the Street Fair in downtown Estevan, the Heretics Motorcycle Club’s annual ride to fight muscular dystrophy, the Dustin Pratt Memorial Golf Tournament, the fundraising slow-pitch game for Special Olympics and the Estevan Steelhaus U18 AAA Bears hockey team’s fall camp meant lots of activity in the community besides great baseball.
Who says there’s nothing to do in Estevan?
Three months ago, we had the Centennial Cup National Junior A Hockey Championship in Estevan, and it was an enormous success. It created a buzz in the community and left people feeling great about Estevan for weeks after the tournament was finished.
Now we’ve shown a completely different group of people that we can host a marquee event.
And when we have events like these in the community, we all win.
