Play ball.
The Henri Lorieau Mini-8 Memorial baseball tournament kicked off this weekend, with games still scheduled to take place today and on Canada Day.
The three-day event – which is being held at White Rock’s Centennial Park – was set to run June 29 to July 1.
The event features Mini-8 division teams from not just the Semiahmoo Peninsula, but across the Lower Mainland, including Langley, Whalley, New Westminster, as well as various Vancouver-area associations.
Lorieau was a longtime executive member with the White Rock-South Surrey Baseball Association, and served as president from 1998 until 2005.
He passed away in November 2015, at age 62, after a battle with cancer.
Prior to his illness, Lorieau was a fixture at the Mini-8 tournament – which had been staged by the association for years prior to being renamed in his honour. Each year at the event, Lorieau, wearing his trademark Hawaiian shirt, was a fixture high about the Centennial Park concession stand, where he would simultaneously serve as game announcer, play music, keep score and hand out nicknames to the tournament’s players.
