april2013

New diamonds women’s team’s best friend

April 4, 2013

Ajax will host 2015 Pan Am Games baseball — including women’s baseball for the first time — and softball at a $9 million upgraded venue.


 

Canada's Jenna Caira pitches against Netherlands during the World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City last summer. The 24-year-old team veteran is looking forward to pitching at the 2015 Pan Am Games in front of family and friends at a refurbished complex in Ajax, Ont.

 

ORIGINAL STORY - by Kerrie Gillespie - Sports Editor

After her seventh concussion, Ashley Stephenson’s neurologist said if she didn’t give up hockey she wouldn’t be fit to play anything, including baseball.

That did it. Stephenson is now behind the bench as an assistant coach with the Toronto Furies in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League.

“I can’t be shut out of baseball, too. I would just go into depression. So now I coach hockey all winter and play baseball all summer,” said Stephenson, who plays third base for Canada’s national team.

Women’s baseball is being thrust onto its biggest international platform ever with its inclusion, for the first time, in the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games.

“We’re taking steps forward and in our own backyard,” said Stephenson.

The Mississauga native was at Wednesday’s $9 million funding announcement for the ballpark at the Audley Recreation Complex in Ajax, where the competitions will be held.

“We’re always known as a hockey nation and now it’s baseball. I think it’s really important for the girls to have a huge multi-sport international event, not just a championship to play for.”

Being added to the Pan Am Games is a step forward for women’s baseball at a time when men’s baseball and women’s softball have suffered setbacks. Both sports were dropped from the Olympics after the 2008 Beijing Games.

The Ajax Pan Am Ballpark is being jointly funded by Ottawa and Ajax. Two soccer fields will become a new baseball diamond, an adjacent diamond will be rebuilt and four softball fields will be upgraded. Construction starts this summer.

Canadian baseball and softball teams will be podium favourites in 2015 and not just because they’ll have the hometown crowd behind them.

The Canadian men’s baseball team won gold at the 2011 Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Mexico. In men’s softball, which returns to the Games for the first time since 2003, Canadians are the defending gold medallists, having won the last seven competitions dating back to 1979.

The women’s softball team won silver in Guadalajara, making it their fourth consecutive second-place finish.

Jenna Caira, a Toronto pitcher on the national softball team, would like nothing more than to step that medal up to gold in 2015.

“That’s what we’re hoping for and striving for,” said Caira, assistant softball coach at Syracuse University.

When the Canadians met the United States in the final at the last Pan Am Games it was their third game of the day, while the fresher Americans had received a bye.

But playing for Canada and staying in a village full of international athletes from multiple sports was still the “experience of a lifetime” for Caira.

“Because softball has been taken out of the Olympics, (Pan Am) is the closest thing that I’ll be able to experience,” she said.

The 24-year-old team veteran is looking forward to pitching in 2015 in front of family and friends.

“As a coach, sometimes you just want to take the ball so bad and play. Unfortunately, you have to stand back and watch,” she said.

Playing less “is making me realize how much I truly love this game. I can’t wait to go back this summer and play.”

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