Joel Dinda / CC
The Charlottetown Islanders have rejoined the New Brunswick Senior Baseball League.
The Saint John Alpines and the Moncton Fisher Cats had been playing one another since early June due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Terre Hunter, general manager of the Alpines, said after playing nine straight games against Moncton, they are looking forward to some new competition.
“Nothing wrong with the guys in Moncton but you get a little tired of playing the same team all the time,” Hunter said in an interview.
“We knew that going into it that that would be the case for the month of June and fortunately the COVID protocols have changed to enable travel to and from the island.”
Saint John and Moncton will each play Charlottetown eight times before the end of the season on Aug. 21.
The Alpines will visit the Islanders on Saturday for their first of four doubleheaders.
Because the regular-season schedule among the three teams will be unbalanced, Hunter said the playoff standings will be a bit different this year.
“The games that we played against Moncton in June will count toward standings, so to determine standings playoff purposes, it’ll be based on a win-loss percentage rather than the normal total wins,” he said
While Saint John, Moncton and Charlottetown will be the only three teams to finish out the regular season, a fourth team will join them for the playoffs.
The Chatham Ironmen, who took a leave of absence for the regular season, have been accepted into post-season play, said Hunter.
“They took a leave of absence for the regular season. At the time that that decision was made, they had concerns about numbers of players and commitments and that sort of thing,” he said.
“Fortunately for them, as the season has developed, they were able to get some players back.”
The playoffs are set to begin on Aug. 28.
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