Jason Kerr
Daily Herald
New Zealand International Softball Academy (ISA) manager Craig Waterhouse has made 10 trips to Canada with the ISA’s U18 team, and the experience never gets old.
Waterhouse will be with the club when they begin their 2025 Canadian tour in Prince Albert on Friday, June 27. This is the first time the club has travelled to Canada since COVID.
“It is an incredible life time experience the boys will never repeat,” Waterhouse wrote in an email to the Herald. “They are incredibly excited.”
The ISA U18 squad will face the Prince Albert U17 Astros in a doubleheader at Max Power Ball Parks. The team will then hit the road for games in Laird, Saskatoon, and Fleming, among other communities.
“We expect the competition to be strong,” Waterhouse wrote. “They are not turning up just for a game.”
Waterhouse views pitching as the team’s key to victory in Canada. The ISA U18 squad has two young hurlers who played provincially, and Waterhouse wrote that the team needs them “firing.”
The squad is playing to win, but Waterhouse wrote that the tour brings plenty of advantages even if they don’t. Canada and New Zealand are similar cultures, he wrote, but not so similar they have nothing to learn from each other.
“(Players can) meet new people. It’s an experience they will never forget,” he wrote.
The Prince Albert U17 Astros and New Zealand International Softball Academy U18s will play at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Friday, June 27. Tickets are $5 at the gate. Children five and under are free.
@kerr_jas • jason.kerr@paherald.sk.ca
