Lyttle chairing his third national tournament in St. Croix
Organizing any kind of sports tournament is challenging but when it comes to a national championship, one can easily enter into another stratosphere.
The upcoming 2018 national senior and master Men’s Fastpitch Softball Championship slated to start in St. Croix at 9 a.m. Aug. 29 is no exception.
In an interview with the Valley Journal-Advertiser, tournament chairperson Darrell Lyttle said, “After the Shooters Bar and Grill League Championships were held in St. Croix in late summer of 2017, I was approached by a group of players who were teenagers in 1998 when we first hosted the Canadian Senior Men’s Fast Pitch Championships. That was a championship that, 20 years later, is still being talked about. The Halifax Jaguars and the hosting Halifax Windsor Keith’s were in the gold medal game and over 4,000 fans were in the ballpark.”
The success of the event did not go unnoticed.
“The question was, would you ever consider hosting another senior men’s that would give those teenagers the chance to play in front of their home fans and family,” said Lyttle.
The players were members of the East Hants Shooters Bar and Grill Mastodons, a team that is at the top of the list of teams in Canada and, in fact, the team went on to win the Canadian Championship in 2017, and will be the defending Canadian champs at the 2018 championship in St. Croix.
“The organizing committee has been hard at work and, with the strong support of the Municipality of West Hants, we are again ready to showcase the premier event for softball in Canada at the St. Croix Recreation Park and to have a host team that are the Canadian defending champions.
“For those that have followed this game over the years, this is an event that you must attend.”