Heading Down Under
Softball one of 28 sports represented in Auckland
Two predominantly P.E.I. women’s softball teams, the Sluggers and Cheers, will be heading to the 2017 World Games in Auckland, New Zealand, in April.
When she first learned of the World Masters Games, Sue Keen put her name on a bulletin board advising she was interested in participating.
She ended up playing softball at the 2005 Games in Edmonton with a team from Langley, B.C. She did the same four years later and played for Brisbane in the Sydney, Australia, Games. “I figured I was way out of my league,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘If I sit on the bench and be the water girl, I’m OK; I’m in Australia.
“They took me in and I fit right in.”
So, when the 2013 Games in Torino, Italy, were coming up, Keen was set to go again. “I thought, ‘Why am I doing this by myself? There’s enough talent in the Maritimes, especially the Island, so I asked around.”
She attended the Torino Games with the Subway Sluggers.
Turns out there’s enough talent around for more than one local team, so two predominantly P.E.I. women’s teams, the Sluggers and Cheers, will be heading to the 2017 World Games in Auckland, New Zealand, April 21 to 30. Both are entered in the 45-plus recreation division.
Keen and two other former Sluggers, Carol White and Karen MacLeod, are on the Cheers Sports Bar and MacDougall Steel-sponsored Cheers roster.
The rest of the roster is making its first trip to the World Masters.
“I hope they feel what I felt when I went the very first time: It’s worlds. You’re playing people from all over the world,” Keen said of the experience. Dawn Moase and Ernestine Arnold are the team’s coach and assistant coach and both say they hope to do some batting in Auckland.
Cheers preparations for the Games have involved a threeand-a-half-year commitment for most of the players, complete with games, practices and nearly $100,000 in fundraising.
This winter they are in the gym two nights week training together as well as working out on their own. One of their sessions is in concert with the P.E.I. Canada Games women’s team. Players range in age from just making the cut at 45 to 72. Arnold and Carol White are at the upper end of the team’s age range and are enthusiastic about competing.
“I love everything about it; I love the practices, I love the games. The harder the practice, the better,” said White.
She marvels at how well the team has gelled.
Moase said Cheers has brought together many athletes who have been lifelong rivals in sport.
Tracy Arsenault is nearer the lower end of the team’s age range. She was also a later addition.
“I would never have expected it,” she said of the opportunity.
“I’m so happy.”
She described the work ethic of the older athletes as being a true inspiration.
While White admits she’s competitive in sport, she said there is another very important element to the World Masters Games.
“It’s not always about the winning; sometimes it’s about the people you meet.”
The 2017 Auckland Games will bring together about 30,000 athletes in 28 sports.