Nova Scotia Native Fastball Circuit (Information Outline)

This summer (2004) was an opportunity to have one of our most popular sports in Nova Scotia's Mi'kmaw communities revived through some strong interest and work from a various number of teams across central and eastern part of the Province... and the result was the revival of the Nova Scotia Native Fastball Circuit.  

The "Circuit" breathed a new life back in early May when team representatives came together at a meeting in We'koq'maq to start discussing some of the changes that were needed to make it a successful summer.  One of the most common things discussed was the need to have an organized softball "TOURNAMENT" league with different divisions this summer.  

We (MYRACL) want to be part of organizing and maintaining this league along with the reps from the teams.  We want this organized.  We proposed a few different divisions at this meeting in Wekoqmaq and they are as follows:

1.    Senior Men's "A" Division -  16 Yrs of Age & Up

2.         Senior Men's "B" Division -  14 Yrs of Age & Up

3.         Senior Womens Division - 12 Yrs of Age & Up

3.         Midget Boys Division - 16 & Under

4.         Boys & Girls (Ages 7-9 & 10-12) - NO REGISTRATION FEES
(Exhibition Games Only)

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** MEETINGS:   ALL interested teams are required to have a representative at this meeting if you want to be part of this league schedule.  IF YOU CANNOT BE THERE - MAKE SURE YOU SEND A REP FROM YOUR TEAM TO ATTEND IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN BEING A PART OF THIS LEAGUE OR TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE THAT WE ARE GOING TO ARRANGE.

ROSTERS:  At our last meeting, we discussed the need for ROSTERS.  We will have all teams register their players on a Team Roster.  Each player will sign their signature on these rosters and will have until only Saturday, July 3rd, 2004 to decide on which team to stay for the entire summer.  After this date, players wishing to switch teams must pay the league a $50.00 transfer fee and will only be allowed to switch a team once after the July 1st deadline.

Teams will only be allowed to have a total of 20 players, including 2 coaches and 1 manager.  These will be the only people allowed in the dugouts of the teams.  Please note:  We are trying to keep out players that are not playing for teams that may cause problems for teams playing on the field.  Also, we are trying to keep children out of the dugouts as well for their own safety.

TOURNAMENTS:  There is a tournament schedule that has been discussed based upon the interest of teams at the first meeting.  The following are some of these proposed dates and locations:  NOTE:  These dates are still tentative depending on the ability of communities to host the tournament.

NS Provincial Native Fastball Tournament League Schedule

We also realize that there are communities that have not hosted tournaments in a few years and we would like to help encourage these communities and teams to host a tournament, but there are some guidelines that need to be followed including a requirement for an adequately lighted field, a minimum of two quality fields available that are readily playable (fences and fields ready to go) and a team that plays regularly in tournaments.  We are also promoting the need for host tournament committees so that there won't be only a couple or three people running around hosting a tournament.

UMPIRES:  Obviously, they must be certified umpires with Softball NS for the home plate and bases... especially for the Men's Division, due to the caliber of play... but we can discuss this further.  We were suggesting a process where we can negotiate prices for umpires, especially in Cape Breton, where the majority of tournaments will be held.  Also, the need for umpire courses were mentioned as well.

COACHING:   MYRACL, the Provincial organization responsible for Sports & Recreation, will be offering NCCP Coaches training for the league.  It was agreed that there should be a minimum of three persons identified per team to attend these training courses.  More than three and up to five are welcomed to attend and represent your teams.  We are imposing a deadline of June 17th, 2004 for teams to identify these individuals.

UNIFORMS:  Given that the league will not start it's first games until mid June 2004, we have a full month to order and fundraise.  We can try to get this done but will need the cooperation of all teams.  We encourage as many teams to have full uniforms, or at least some type of T-Shirts.  One thing made clear was that the Provincial FInals - all teams will be required to have a full set of uniforms.

SCHEDULE:   Since this is going to be a summer "tournament league" instead of a league during the week games, we have tried to spread out the schedule to have tournaments every two weeks or more as much as possible.  This will give time for players and families to enjoy the summer too.  This will also give time for exhibition games for children and youth in between these dates.

POINT STRUCTURE:  To determine the top four (4) teams at the end of the year, we will establish a point structure that consists of the following (this will count for each of the divisions):

1st Place:               6 points
2nd Place:             4 points
Semi's:                   2 points     (The third & fourth place teams)

COSTS:  A minimum of $350.00 per team and a maximum of $450.00 per team was discussed.  The average cost will be $400.00.  Another thing discussed was to have $50.00 from each registration fee go towards the NS Native Fastball League so that at the end of the summer, each division champion will receive 75% of the total monies to help towards their participation in the following summer's Native Nationals (wherever they are). The remaining 25% will go towards the end of the year League Banquet.  

HOME GAMES/TOURNAMENTS:  Teams will be responsible to have their own umpires, fields, etc ready to go... If we can all guarantee this, then we will have done the majority of what we need to do to host games for league or tournaments.

RULES:  We will need to sit down and discuss the need for our own set of rules, just like the MIHA (Hockey), we need to protect players and OFFICIALS.  Any players that do not want to play fair, alcohol and drug free, and respecting other players and officials - shouldn't play.

For more information, please contact:

Robert Bernard
MYRACL Executive Director
We'koq'maq First Nation
902-756-3300 work
902-295-8200 cell