07/25/2026
Apologies in the delay in getting this out there but the down time was needed and quite frankly have been reliving the wonderful weekend through the daily pictures being posted by our fantastic tournament photographer, Tanya Giles!!
Many Thank You's to pass out to everyone who helped make the 7th Annual Youth Softball Tournament a huge success! 40 teams made up of some 530 youth, graced the Mindemoya Ball Fields over an 89 game schedule. The skill, sportsmanship and team building methods you displayed, will hopefully carry with you as you get older.
From the very young, T-Ball exhibition game, complete with player introductions, playing of O'Canada, player walk-up songs, to the last out at 6:40pm Sunday night, the 4 day event brought approximately 1300 people to Mindemoya and area, and hopefully some economic spin off to local businesses.
The weekend certainly could not have happened without the TREMENDOUS financial support of our SPONSORS! You outdid yourselves with your contributions to help us keep team fees at a minimum and allowing every player to walk away with a couple souvenirs. We cannot thank our SPONSORS enough!!
We called on our personal friends once again to come on board as volunteer umpires and your support saved us approximately $3000.00 in umpire fees. And let's not forget, even paid umpires may make decisions you may not agree with! Thank you Jim Brandow, Dan Marois, Bob Dumond, Andrew Argall, Bruce Wiggins, Rodney Cox, Darryl Vanhorn, Larry Harasym, Jamie Farquhar and Devin Lockeyer for giving a knowledgeable hand to umpiring these 89 games!
Thank you to our electronic scoreboard scorekeepers Gloria Haner and Ben Wilson for keeping everyone informed!
Thank you to Jamie Farquhar for helping put up the banners and Allen Haner for transporting the snow fence and t-posts.
Thanks to Cooper and Son's Plumbing for bringing forth the idea of hitting the inflatable plumber on the 'A' field!!
Many thanks to the Big Lake School Association for keeping people fed at Central Manitoulin Public School and to the Lanktree Family for all their hard work flipping burgers and keeping people hydrated at the Main fields.
HUGE thanks to photographer, Tanya Giles, who took all the team photos and arranging production with Andrew Vondette of Paperworks, to get the photos developed and distributed to all the teams. As well, Tanya's tremendous action shots throughout the weekend have been proudly on display!.
Special thanks as well to Marcus Mohr with getting page functional, Jackie White for all her technical support and Jay Toope of OJ Graphics for putting our ideas on paper!
Thanks to the Municipal crew for preparing the fields prior to the start of each day.
Everything didn't go as hoped though as we had called up local teams to help with putting up the snow fence at CMPS prior to Pearson Cup. It was advertised that if we didn't get enough help with this necessary chore, that CMPS may not be an option for next year . About 20-22 games are played at CMPS and if the school is not an option, it would mean a reduction of about 10-12 teams next year, with all games only being played at the 2 mainfields, Only 5 parents came out so that tells us people don't mind having less teams next year.
Finally, to the Organizing Committee I got to work with, Glenn Duncanson, Annette King, Kennedy Lanktree, Chairperson Devin Lockeyer, along with weekend support staff, Justin Lockeyer, Ashley, Reid and Chase Taylor, I cannot thank you enough for all your work. This event does not just happen on that weekend, it takes months of preparation in order to bring this event to a high standard.
The idea of this tournament came about when the idea of a major ballfield improvement commitment took place in 2017 with the application to the Toronto Blue Jays Care Foundation was approved and the renovations began in 2018. It has been a long 10 year process with our community benefitting on the backs of volunteers to have a topnotch ball facility in the middle of town.
The Municipality has taken over the ball fields now so it is hoped the standards will stay the same as though developed by the volunteers.
A complete review of this year's tournament will happen shortly and from that the date for next year will be decided upon. Next year is another calendar night mare so the date for the Youth Tourney will be dependent on other events happening in town.
Thank you everyone who helped make this even happen and all your help over the past 10 years....it has been quite a run...
