Why baseball works so well in Okotoks
INSIDE THE PHENOMENON OF THE DAWGS AND THE TOWN THAT SUPPORTS THEM
TOKOTOKS
here are signs all over town, directing traffic toward Seaman Stadium.
But you’d be hard pressed to find someone who needs them.
For the past five summers, the hottest ticket and place to be has been at an Okotoks Dawgs game. Since 2007, locals and out-oftowners have been spitting Spitz, crushing hotdogs, and wailing through seventh inning stretches.
In other words, music to John Ircandia’s ears.
“Okotoks is a funny town,” says the Dawgs’ managing director and one of the main men behind it all. “It’s spread out a little bit with some ranchers, some oil industry people, some service sector people in the oilpatch and all that. But they don’t necessarily see each other every day.
“(Dawgs games) kind of became a place to see your neighbours again. We’ve heard that from a lot of people . . . it’s like going to somebody’s daughter’s wedding every week.”
A self-sustaining, bustling community situated along the Sheep River, Okotoks has grown 42.9 per cent from 2006 based on last year’s Census. The average age of residents is 34 and, after one trip to the local Costco, it’s easy to see young families are popping up all over.
But Seaman Stadium is an easy sell to anyone. Cheap tickets, cheap brews, an awesome calibre of ball.
And the atmosphere? Like one big block party.
“It’s been phenomenal what (the team) has done for community spirit,” says Shane Olson, who works with economic development for the Town of Okotoks. “It’s a small town and even though Calgarians are out, you do recognize people. It’s become sort of a networking place.
“There’s some people that don’t miss a game.”
Ircandia estimates crowds have gone from around 1,600 per game in 2007 to 2,400 in 2011.
And, unrelated or not, Okotoks Minor Baseball numbers have spiked from 150 members in 2006 to 500 last season.
“The spinoff is not only for Okotoks but for the entire foothills region,” Olson points out. “There are so many youth that want to go into baseball now. There’s all kind of pressure on sports field usage in the Foothills, Black Diamond, Turner Valley area.
“That’s kind of neat. That speaks big.”
The contagious vibe around the Dawgs, Brandon Newell will tell you, is not normal.
Before joining as the club’s manager, he spent nine seasons coaching the Bellingham Bells of the West Coast League, 10 years with a clipboard in hand as a full-time scout with the Milwaukee Brewers, and five years playing professionally in the New York Mets system.
In other words, he’s seen it all.
“But to look up and see 4,000 people at a ball game?” Newell sputtered, eyes wide. “Where there’s only 30,000 people that live here? That’s weird. I’ve been in professional baseball for the past 16 years of my life, as a player and as a scout. When I took this job, I’d heard something about it.
“I knew there was a pretty good buzz but you don’t know until you’re actually here.”
The product basically speaks for itself — summertime entertainment, topnotch collegiate baseball, a place where youth talent can flourish. Players, from some of the top programs in Canada and the U.S., are immersed in the community and live with billets through the summer.
There are two high performance midget clubs (18 and under) and two high performance bantam clubs (15 years and under), 85 fulltime players, six-full time coaches and eight parttimers who have all played some form of high-level baseball. A nutritionist. A speed trainer. A strength and conditioning coach.
The facility, meanwhile, is state-of-the art with the latest attraction being Duvernay Fieldhouse: an out-of-this world indoor full-sized infield and field turf playing surface, plus clubhouses, a weight training room, batting cages, and places for video analysis.
Ircandia credits Okotoks for making it all happen in the first place.
“The result of that is now we have those extraordinary facilities,” he says. “The town participates directly in all of this. The town council, the municipal government, they’re all on side for this.
“They just saw the opportunity and thought, ‘What are you, crazy? Of course we’ll do it.’ They convinced us to go there. They see the benefit; we help them, they help us.”
And everyone wins. With the extra traffic flow caused by Dawgs games, their community is on display as out-of-towners flock to local shopping areas and amenities.
“The Dawgs help us bring people in that probably wouldn’t come otherwise,” Olson says. “You see people wear Dawgs jerseys and Dawgs hats all over town. There’s lots of social things, businesses support them. Sports is part of the whole arts and cultural makeup, too. It helps with that.
“That’s a key economic driver.”
The local business community has reciprocated the love, too. Currently, there is a lineup for the valuable advertising real estate on the massive outfield wall.
And after six years and counting, the buzz hasn’t worn off.
“You wonder whether there is a honeymoon period with something like that,” Ircandia says. “The stadium was so new and beautiful and people would get tired of it.
“But, the business-side of it is evident. Full support.”
On the other end, when it comes to promoting his team, Ircandia ensures he has a quality product before anything else.
“I quickly discovered that you can spend a fortune on advertising but until you have people coming to watch and they’re interested in it, you’re going to get the coverage you’re going to get. So, to me, there’s no point in paying for a ton of advertising dollars.
“Be something first … and if you do things right and put your heart and soul into something, eventually people are going to notice if it’s worthwhile and worthy of consideration.”
Hence the high expectations on and off the field.
In their first three years of operation, the on-field prod-
(DAWGS GAMES) KIND OF BECAME A PLACE TO SEE YOUR NEIGHBOURS AGAIN . . . IT’S LIKE GOING TO SOMEBODY’S DAUGHTER’S WEDDING EVERY WEEK OKOTOKS DAWGS MANAGING DIRECTOR JOHN IRCANDIA
uct produced three WMBL titles (2007, 2008, and 2009). They had another brilliant regular season campaign last year, 34-12 (.762), but fell three games to one in the WMBL best-of-five final to the Regina Red Sox. Not good enough by the Dawgs’ standards.
But there’s a bigger picture to all of it. In the span of the three month campaign in 2011, 72,000 clicking through the gates to see the Dawgs play 30 home dates.
So, they must be doing something right.
“Nobody’s in this for the money,” Ircandia explains, flatly. “We’re not doing this for profit so we don’t have to justify anything. We believe in our vision. That’s really the focus of the whole thing.
“The success of the college team and how much fun it is and how well they play, is sort of an add-on. We want to do it right. We want it to be fun for the community, whether it was Calgary or Okotoks.”
It was — and still is — just a bunch of people passionate about this level of baseball.
For Newell, who has a young family, Okotoks is now home. Seaman Stadium is a close second. And he’s not the only one. “These people have a lot of pride,” he says. “This is theirs. This isn’t a Calgary team they are going to support — this is an Okotoks team.
“It’s cool. I mean, you go around the community and they wear Dawgs gear. They don’t wear Blue Jays or Yankees stuff — they wear Dawgs hats and clothes. It’s a brand. It’s a big business.
“This is way bigger than baseball for us.”