Bow Island softball tournament wild success

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Ryan Dahlman

By Anna Smith
Commentator/Courier

June 9th–11th marked Bow Island’s annual softball tournament, which saw 16 teams spend the weekend in the hot sun in Bert Knibbs Park, from all across the province.

“I can’t believe how many teams were there. We had a team from Calgary, a couple people from Edmonton playing on a team,” said Kaylee Ostenberg, Recreation Facilitator for the Town of Bow Island.  “We had Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, and then some Milk River and local teams. So that was awesome to see. So it was a good variety. We had some teams that were just starting out playing together, and others that had been playing together for a while.”

One such team was Bimmer’s Black Helmets, composed largely of members of the local fire hall, all together for what may be their last hurrah in honour of the late Kelly Byam.

“We’ve been doing this slo-pitch tournament as a fire department for the last – since they started – I think the last seven or eight years. So we’ve had kind of an annual event where we’ve gone through and Kelly, we called him our team manager,” said Clayton Hodgson, fire captain.

The winner of Pool A was Rebel Cubs, a team from Medicine Hat, and Pool B had local team A535 for champions.

The teams themselves weren’t the only success of the weekend, however, with the bucket raffle bringing in just over $1000, and the 50/50 winner taking home a total of $485 dollars.

“The 50/50 went to the Bow Island Arena for arena upgrades and then the Island Vitality bucket raffle draw, went to the new multi-use facility,” said Ostenberg.

“Overall, it was a really great tournament. I couldn’t even thank all the volunteers enough. I couldn’t thank Public Works enough for making sure that the diamonds were set up Friday for the first games, and then also coming Saturday, and helping with the beer gardens,” said Ostenberg. “So it was just a really awesome event to see all the volunteers out.”