Both Crowsnest Pass minor teams gathered before their game for a photo. Nick Allen photo.
Nicholas L. M. Allen
Jun 21, 2023
Both the minor and major baseball teams in the Crowsnest Pass gathered for a year end tournament on June 16 and 17.
The Crowsnest Pass was host to a minor and major baseball tournament on June 16 and 17 at the ball diamonds in Hillcrest and Blairmore.
The coach for the Crowsnest Green minor team, Patrick Thomas, spoke about the tournament and what it means to host the year end tournament.
Thomas started coaching baseball just before COVID and has been coaching the kids’ team since then.
“This year, Crowsnest Pass is hosting the minor and majors’ year end tournament. We have nine minor teams and eight major teams here last night, and today with the championships or finals this evening,” said Thomas.
According to Thomas, there were around 185 kids in the Pass playing ball this past weekend. The Crowsnest Pass had nine players on each of the minor teams, with their names being Crowsnest Pass White and Crowsnest Pass Green. The two minor teams played against one another on Saturday at the Hillcrest ball diamonds. All three teams played at the Hillcrest ball diamonds on June 17 which Thomas said was “wonderful” to have.
“It’s been great weather and a great turnout and it’s really awesome to see this much baseball,” said Thomas.
The diamond in Blairmore at Isabelle Sellon School is smaller than the ones in Hillcrest, but they still had a busy crowd according to Thomas. He said he enjoyed seeing the difference in the kids’ skills from the start of the season as they reached the end.
“We’ll be having a bunch of these kids moving up to the major [team] next year. It’ll be great. It’s really good to see how many [people] are interested in ball again,” added Thomas.
These teams aren’t the only ones in action though, with at least one T-ball team and then the high school team as well.
“This will be [our] wrap-up weekend for the minor teams and then there’s ten teams in slo-pitch this summer, so that’ll be going until the middle of August,” said Thomas.
He said if there is anyone with kids that have interest, it’s a great atmosphere to get them out and interested.
“We’ve got several players this year that had never played ball before, and even just seeing them hit a ball is a great experience,” explained Thomas.