(Above and at bottom) On June 17th, Canadian national team athletes took time out of their traning camp and Ontario Tour to run 4- to 8-year old children through a series of activities at a Learn To Play Clinic in Kitchener. (Photos courtesy of Softball Canada)

SOFTBALL IN CANADA GROWING AND DEVELOPING
2006-07-12

There's a temptation to overlook the established softball nations when it comes to talking about developing the sport. With countries like Australia, China, Japan, and USA regularly seeing their national teams qualifying for major championships and the Olympics, what type of work could possibly need to be done there?

If Canada is any kind of example, LOTS of work can still be done, regardless of the advancements of the women’s national team. (Canada just won the silver medal at the 2006 Canada Cup.)

Softball Canada, the national governing body for the sport in that country, has a successful “Learn To Play” program that is resulting in increased participation and popularity. More Minor Softball Associations (MSAs) are adopting the program than ever before.

In Alberta, that province’s softball association is actively promoting the program through a series of initiatives this month and next, including a Learn To Play Day in Edmonton on July 29. A little further west, Softball British Columbia offered a clinic for both boys and girls just before the start of the Canada Cup. That association has also expanded the program to day camps and community centers, to the extent that, as of June 6th, ten camps were already booked for July and August (in conjunction with various day camps already offered in Vancouver).

Elsewhere, among other initiatives, Softball Nova Scotia had Learn To Play camps – open to all children – scheduled in five different cities throughout the province during the month of July. Meanwhile, Softball Ontario is predicting that, at the very least, 160 coaches will be trained by the end of the summer through free clinics they’re sponsoring. They’re also hosting three Canadian Championships this summer and plan to hold a Learn To Play Day at each one of them. Around 76 children took part in a clinic in Kitchener, Ontario, last month that featured members of the women’s national team (see photo at top and below).

The numbers bear out the program’s success. In 2005, one MSA in Ontario alone saw an increase in membership in initiation-level softball of five times what it was in 2002!

Softball is a sport truly on the rise – in Canada and around the world.

(Information for this article was taken from Softball Canada’s “Around The Horn” July 2006 newsletter.)