(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D’Andrea

Play ball!

Hope and the Future: Getting back to the ball diamond

Dec 30, 2020 | 12:00 PM

The COVID-19 pandemic makes 2020 a year many may prefer to forget but there is hope for the future. We’ve decided to make that the focus of our series of end-of-year stories.

The snap of the catcher’s mitt, the ping of the ball off the bat, and the erupting of the dugout after a home run will all return to ball diamonds again.

Prince Albert’s Kalen Kovitch hopes all those big moments can return as soon as this summer. Kovitch, who was named for the Softball Canada’s 2020 U18 Men’s National Team Coaching Staff as an assistant coach, is also the player and coaching development coordinator for Prince Albert Minor Softball.

Kovitch said he hopes softball can get back to as close to normal as possible this season.

“We’re all hoping for the same thing, and that is having a ball season that resembles what we’ve had in past years and not 2020,” he said. “I think that it’s out of our hands at this point in terms of governments and sport organizing organization deciding what’s going to happen, how, and when it’s going to happen. I think that patience is key, and I know people have been patient with sport and with COVID and everything.”

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The big thing Kovitch looks forward to in the future is how excited his kids and the rest of the youth are to get back on the field or into the rink when it is safe to do so.

“As adults, we take for granted how much kids want to participate in sport,” Kovitch said. “When it’s taken away, you talk a lot about mental health of young people during the pandemic, and I think sport helps them with that. Hockey was back for a brief time. I was helping with my kids’ teams and you could just see they were excited to go to the rink.”

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Jeff.dandrea@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW