submitted photo - Lovell McDonnell poses with members of Medicine Hat's junior national Little League champions in Lethbridge Sunday after the team won the title game.
It’s a crazy week for Medicine Hat’s Junior Little League All-Stars: or, as we should now call them, Team Canada.
From filling out questionnaires from ESPN to a huge ovation at Tuesday’s Mavericks game, the 13- and 14-year-olds won’t even have time for a team practice as they get set to don the maple leaf at the Little League World Series in Taylor, Michigan starting Saturday.
“We had to sign like 40 baseballs, my hands are so tired,” said left-fielder Colbin Unreiner. “I want to practice before we go to worlds, but I’m pretty sure we can practice at the worlds before the tournament starts.”
While the kids are living it up, the parents are working like bees behind the scenes. There is a lot to figure out, from travel to accommodations and even pins for trading.
“Pins are the huge one, right now I’m trying to collect hats from the different sports teams in Medicine Hat to give the host families,” said Little League vice-president Chad Nelson, whose son Aidan is on the team. “The organization hasn’t done it before and we don’t have the experience that a Lethbridge or a Whalley, B.C. or Quebec have. We’ve been having to scramble and reach out to people through various means.”
Everyone with the local association knew this was possible – after all, Hat teams have made it to a national final before.
When the final out happened Sunday at nationals in Lethbridge, the contingent watching including past coaches and Lovell McDonnell, who’s been involved in Little League since it began in the city. They might have been as excited as the players.
“We’ve had teams get to the championship game, I believe five or six times, but in each one of those occasions we’ve come up short,” said McDonnell, who went to two of the team’s other games on the weekend as well. “It was very exciting and fun to be there.”
Medicine Hat Little League is holding a fundraising send-off barbecue for the team Thursday, 5:30 p.m. at Jeffries Field. The public is invited and all money raised from the event will be used to make the players’ experience in Taylor the best it can be.
“This fundraiser is strictly for the kids and giving them a great experience,” said Nelson. “It’s not funding any sort of parent activity or parent travel cost.”
McDonnell always said he wanted to go if a Hat team should make it to a world series, but as of Tuesday hadn’t officially made up his mind.
He knows the players who are going will have memories to last a lifetime.
“All of these games and playoffs and tournaments that kids play in, when you talk to those guys years later you never forget those things,” said McDonnell. “So this will be an experience these guys will never forget.”
