Rotary Field will host the Men's Softball World Cup Group B Qualifier this week. (City of Prince Albert/WBSC.org)

By Teena Monteleone

World Class Facility

‘We built the diamonds and the world came to us’: Lasting impact of upgrades to Prime Ministers Park

Jul 8, 2024 | 3:04 PM

When a group of softball enthusiasts embarked on a campaign a decade ago to bring top-tier fastpitch to Prince Albert, they never anticipated it would land the city on the world stage multiple times.

“It all started with a bunch of us sitting around a table talking about bringing a world championship to the city. That led to a meeting with Softball Canada and some officials from the World Baseball Softball Confederation and we found out that our diamonds weren’t up to par to host a world championship,” said Ian Litzenberger, co-chair for the 2025 World Cup bid committee.

Construction began in September 2016 on Rotary Field at Prime Ministers Park in Prince Albert. (File photo/princealbertrotary.org)

That’s when Project Triple Play started. It was a $1.6 million fundraiser to upgrade facilities at Prime Minister’s Park – which included constructing a new diamond (Rotary Field). It also featured expanding a second one to provide four regulation size fields within Max Power Ball Park able to host the U16 Nationals in 2015 and then the 2018 WBSC Junior Men’s Softball World Championships. Six years later, the central stadium will stage 19 games of the Men’s Softball World Cup Group B qualifier later this week and the finals in 2025.

“We thought, let’s do this one more time and that’s where we are now. It was always the long-term goal. We never knew if we’d pull it off, but here we are, so I guess we did,” said Litzenberger.

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Rotary Field stadium seats 600 people in its permanent stands, but the capacity of the stadium increased to more than 5,000 seats during the event in 2018.

“We knew if we built these diamonds, the world would come,” said Felix Casavant, co-chair of the local organizing committee, during the Junior Men’s World Cup in 2018. “It was just a great feeling to see the park packed and everybody so enthusiastic and so many positive comments coming from the teams and the fans about our facilities.”

The U-18 Men’s Softball World Cup in 2018 left a profit of $150,000 and an economic impact of about $10 million. Casavant, who is the director of finance for this year’s event expects another home run with the group stage and finals in Prince Albert. He estimates they will bring $3.66 million to the city.

“It’s just unbelievable what an event like that does for a small community like ours.”

After the conclusion of the WBSC U-18 Men’s Softball World Cup 2018, the event received the Tourism Saskatchewan Marquee Event of the Year award, recognizing the economic and tourism impact in the community, and the sporting legacy in Prince Albert.

“I’ll go back to 1983, when we had the Optimist Field which was just a clay diamond,” remembered Casavant. “We now have four diamonds at Prime Ministers Park, three diamonds with lights and all four diamonds with scoreboards. These diamonds are second to none in the world.”

Litzenberger added, “this is the city where we raised our kids and we get to leave a legacy, so to speak, and generations of ballplayers, young and old, get to use these facilities bringing in provincial tournaments, national tournaments, Westerns, Worlds…whatever it may be. We’re getting that opportunity to showcase Prince Albert and Saskatchewan and that’s worth all the extra effort that we put into getting to see them being in use.”

The World Cup qualifier kicks off Wednesday. Opening ceremonies are at 4:30 p.m. followed by Team Canada taking on the team from Hong Kong. Tickets are just $25 for the day or $100 for the entire event.

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panews@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @princealbertNOW