It’s officially slo-pitch season in Kelowna.
Hosting more than 160 teams in various levels of play spanning over six nights a week, the City of Kelowna’s slo-pitch league is one of the largest co-ed leagues in Canada.
Grant Campbell, city sports leagues and tournaments co-ordinator, said it’s clear why slo-pitch is such a popular spring sport.
“The big thing is that it’s such a social game,” said Campbell. “People meeting other people, not a ton of injuries, and more people can play more than once a week.”
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Campbell said the city league also hosts Special Olympics slo-pitch teams that compete within the recreational divisions as training.
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The city league is the biggest out of the slo-pitch leagues throughout Kelowna, and as more players join every year that increases the overall league player skill level.
With the increasing level of competition, Campbell said the city is working to develop larger ball diamonds to address the more heavy-hitters coming on board.
“We’re limited to the amount of diamonds we have, and we need to build more and bigger, so that our leagues stay at the recreation level,” he said.
For example at the Mission Recreation Park, Campbell said that there has been a proposal to add two larger diamonds, making it eight total, to maintain that recreational level.
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While the spring season gets more teams, Campbell said it’s the summer season that rates highest.
“Hit the lake and come in after for a late ball game, it doesn’t get much better than that in the summer,” he said.
There will be over 800 scheduled games over the spring, with then a transition to summer league play in June.
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