Jim Swanson said the high of coaching the host Prince George Axemen to the 2012 Canadian men鈥檚 senior amateur baseball title will always stay with him.
So much so the Victoria HarbourCats鈥� managing director has helped bring the national championship tournament to the sa国际传媒 capital for both 2017 and 2018. Baseball sa国际传媒 made the announcement Tuesday.
鈥淚 have been involved seven times, as either a player or coach, and playing for your province is as intense a feeling of pride as you can get on a diamond in sa国际传媒,鈥� said Swanson.
Each province will be represented. Most provinces send their previous year鈥檚 champion, supplemented by players picked up from other teams, but are also free to pick a provincial all-star team if they want.
sa国际传媒 will be represented next summer by the defending champion Burnaby Bulldogs, who won the 2016 provincial crown over the summer in Nanaimo. There is also a host team, which will be the Victoria Mavericks League all-stars.
The 2017 national tournament will run Aug. 23-27 with most of the games at Royal Athletic Park with a secondary venue to be decided. The 2018 tournament is Aug. 22-25.
The most recent occasions the event has been held in sa国际传媒 were 2002 and 2012 in Prince George and 2005 in Kamloops.
Former major leaguers such as Jason Dickson, now president of Baseball sa国际传媒, and Matt Stairs have played in the national championships, although most of the participants are former college-level players now playing senior ball.
The Burnaby Bulldogs are coached by Mike Sinclair, brother of Canadian women鈥檚 soccer great Christine Sinclair. Island fans can get an early glimpse of the Bulldogs when they play the HarbourCats, who feature mostly NCAA collegiate players in the West Coast League, in exhibition games July 15-16 at Royal Athletic Park.
The HarbourCats organization is hosting the back-to-back national tournaments but a separate committee, under co-chairs Gary Beyer and Shawn Petriw, has been struck to run the national events.
