(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D'Andrea

Play Ball!

Softball games coming back ‘pretty quickly’ to Prince Albert

Jun 24, 2020 | 5:00 PM

Softball has already gotten back on the Prince Albert diamonds, as teams returned to practice at the beginning of this week.

But now that the Saskatchewan Health Authority has unveiled more details about phase 4.2 of the Re-Open Saskatchewan Plan, there could be games just around the corner.

Prince Albert Minor Softball player and coaching development coordinator Kalen Kovitch said competition will start “pretty quickly” after the June 29 start date for Phase 4.2. Although there will be more than a few changes to the season this summer, they won’t affect the game itself.

“The game will look much the same,” Kovitch said. “There’s sliding, there’s tagging, there’s no safety lines, we don’t have to sanitize the ball between every play or anything like that. It’s just being cognizant of social distancing.”

The dugouts will have to be sanitized after a game has concluded, players and coaches will be given some safety questions to answer before they step onto the diamond. And crowd size will have to be monitored.

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Gatherings throughout the province are capped at 30, but since softball is played in a fenced-in diamond, that can allow for two separate ‘gatherings’ so to speak, Kovitch said. Players, coaches and umpires in the fenced area can be up to a maximum of 30 people, while the spectators around the diamond can add up to another 30 people. The spectators will be required to physically distance themselves by at least two metres.

Another huge change to the softball season this year will be tournaments—or lack thereof.

Tournaments are such a big part of softball in Saskatchewan. National berths are settled by either winning or finishing well at provincial tournaments. Even throughout the summer, teams come from across the province to flood a set of diamonds and slug it out for the weekend.

That is an obvious spread hazard during a pandemic, but Kovitch said there is a workaround.

Although tournaments will not be able to happen in their traditional sense, that isn’t to say one venue couldn’t host several games with multiple teams, including out-of-town clubs. Instead of having a 1.5-hour time slot for each game like they normally would for tournaments, Prince Albert softball will double that to avoid crowding around the ballparks. Then two teams would come to the diamond, play against each other, and leave the field once the game concludes. Then after the three-hour time slot has expired, the next two teams would come to the park. And so that would continue until the competition is complete.

“At this point in time, we’re not allowed to sanction tournaments. But there’s nothing saying that Melfort and Tisdale couldn’t meet in Prince Albert for a game, organized by a certain association adhering to guidelines in terms of distances and obviously sanitation,” Kovitch said. “We can have on the field of play: 12 players, two coaches per team, and an umpire and a statistician and still be within our 30 people limit.

“We’re planning like we’re going to play competitions, whether or not we call it a tournament, whether it’s three teams on a weekend or whatever it may be, we’re still planning on having competitions leading up to the provincial championships.”

Kovitch added he anticipates tournaments to return in a more traditional form at some point this summer.

Softball Saskatchewan feels the same way as they are still aiming on having provincial tournaments throughout the month of August. In their press release on June 18 just as phase four was heating up, they released all of their provincial tournament dates on their website—starting as early as Aug. 7 and finishing as late as Aug. 30, from Under-12 to men’s and women’s. The slo-pitch provincials have been cancelled for this year.

As to when play can start, Kovitch believes that it will start “pretty quickly” after phase 4.2 gets underway on June 29. Games and the non-tournament tournaments are currently being planned, but will need to be sanctioned to make sure they’ll meet the guidelines put together by Softball Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan government.

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW