Air Canada cancellations cause Sask. baseball team to scramble ahead of nationals

Baseball Saskatchewan’s U15 team is going to owe their parents a big thank you after they went the extra mile to get them to Prince Edward Island (PEI) for a major national tournament on Thursday.

The ball club was supposed to fly out of Regina on Tuesday and head to Summerside for the start of the Ray Carter Cup, but because of the strikes happening at Air Canada, the team’s flights from Regina were cancelled, forcing players and coaches to scramble.

“It was incredibly stressful. How it managed to happen was the parents who had all booked flights to go to watch their kids gave up all their flights and transferred them to the kids’ names,” explained head coach Blair Beck.

“We were able to get the 19 flights we needed to get out there. The parents made a pretty incredible sacrifice to make sure those kids could get out there so we could play.”

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Beck said the idea came from the parents.

He notes that if it weren’t for them, the team likely would not have made it to the tournament.

“Honestly, I didn’t see a path of how this was going to work. For them to come through with this idea on their own and then to go through the hassle to make it actually work (was amazing),” Beck explained.

“Kids that are at this level that generally make Team Sask. have parents that are willing to get them where they need to go, no matter what. This is just another great example of it.”

Beck mentioned that everyone on the team will be arriving at airports in either Moncton, Charlottetown or Halifax before heading to Summerside.

“The organizing committee in P.E.I. has been unreal, and they’re going to swing by and pick us all up,” Beck said. “We’re going to get there – might make it in time for the home run hitting contest, and we start playing Thursday morning.”

The tournament in P.E.I. runs until Saturday night. Over the course of the next three days, Saskatchewan will play games against Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.

Beck thinks his team has a good chance to have a good showing at one of the country’s largest tournaments.

“We expect to go in there and compete,” Beck said. “It’s incredible what the parents have done here for the kids and Baseball Sask. for making it work.”