The New Brunswick Junior Baseball League provincial championship will look a bit different than usual this year.
For the past few years, the league’s top teams have taken part in playoff rounds to determine the winner.
But this year’s championship will feature a tournament-style event over the course of three days.
Terre Hunter, general manager of the Saint John Alpines, said they were given the first chance to host the event since they were the defending champions from 2019.
“When we discussed this in the spring, COVID regulations were certainly different then than they are now and there was some uncertainty as to whether we would be able to have the timeframe that we needed to play the traditional playoff rounds, which could take two to three weeks,” Hunter said in an interview.
Saint John Alpines will welcome three other teams from the league for this weekend’s tournament: the Metro Mudcats, Chatham Ironment, and Fredericton Royals.
All four teams will play each other once during round-robin play, which begins at 4 p.m. Friday and continues through Saturday. The finals are set to take place on Sunday.
Fredericton led the regular season with 12 wins, followed by Metro with 11 wins, Saint John with nine wins, and Chatham with three wins.
Hunter said he expects some great baseball action all weekend long at Memorial Field.
“The top three teams, for sure, all the games were a battle back and forth all through the season, so we believe the same thing is going to result from this weekend,” he said.
You can find the schedule for this weekend’s championship on the league’s website.
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