One of Canada’s most successful baseball academies is back on the diamond.
The Okotoks Dawgs Academy were back on the Seaman Stadium field on May 26 after being one of the first youth sports groups in the province allowed to return to practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We have a phenomenal parent group here and the kids are just great,” said Dawgs Academy general manager Tyler Hollick. “They were diligent enough with their work, they worked so hard with their virtual training and staying patient with it and understanding this is a lot bigger than just Dawgs baseball, it affected the whole world.
“They were a little bit heartbroken that they put a lot of work into the offseason and they weren’t able to get outside right away, but now that they’re back outside it makes them want it even more.”
The safety measures in place include limiting practices groups of no more than 15, enforcing the athletes to stay in their vehicles until five minutes before practice, physical distancing six feet apart along with surveys acknowledging the players haven’t been around anyone with COVID-19 or haven’t been outside of the country. As well there are protocols for the direction the players enter and exit the cage or the facility along with mandated use of hand sanitizer on the way in and out.
“We’re definitely trying to keep them safe,” Hollick said. “That’s our number-one priority and so far our staff and organization has been doing well with it.”
The Dawgs presented the Town of Okotoks with an extensive information package with a PowerPoint presentation detailing its plans for a safety first practice model.
The process of submission and approval took close to a month.
“I think we’ve been diligent with a lot of our practices and protocols over the years and we have a lot to facilitate,” Hollick said. “We have our full facilities at Seaman Stadium, Tourmaline combined and there’s a lot to cover, but we have a lot of really qualified coaches and people to be able to do that.
“Our PowerPoint presentation, we sent it to the Town, it got approved, they were in huge support of it and after they approved it they got it on to the provincial government and they approved it right after that.”
Given its successful bid to get back to practices, Hollick said the academy has heard from a number of sports groups about what went into the process.
“The WCBL league president reached out for some ideas on what we sent with our safety first practice plan, we’ve had a Little League from Calgary reach out and ask what we did and some other associations from Calgary and we referred them to our presentation we put forward and a little bit of a patience,” Hollick said. “We’re really fortunate that we have phenomenal leaders in our organization to help back us.”
The academy features teams from 13U to 18U.
Due to the limits on groups of 15, the amount of practice time is scaled back with six practices per day for the academy players.
“We’re limited on time in terms of, we can’t just practice for six hours, because we have other groups coming in,” Hollick said. “But, we’re getting a ton of reps in and the groups are small so they’re getting a bunch of swings and a bunch of ground balls and they’re having a blast.
“It’s been a ton of fun to see the smiles on the kids’ faces.”
For the past two months, the Dawgs Academy had been offering virtual training instructions for its athletes.
It served as a good stop-gap measure and kept the players in good shape to get back into regular training.
“I think it was great for building a routine for our guys,” he said. “You’re dealing with 11 year-olds all the way to 18 and they’re dealing with a lot of stuff, especially when you get into the teens, dealing with their social lives, moving towards school online, baseball is usually their number-one passion and they’re forced to take that out.
“The one thing I think it really helped out with is the psychological aspect, where they were able to get into a routine every day at 2 o’clock and still be able to move and be active and do some baseball-specific things.
“Was it ideal? No, but it was better than any other option we found out there and I think by the end of 60 days or so, it began to be a little bit stale so we were able to get back on the field in the nick of time and the guys were in pretty decent shape from it so we were able to resume practice at a pretty decent rate and our guys are doing great so far.”
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