2011 Softball Canada Award Winners

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Softball Canada Announces 2011 Award Winners

(Ottawa, ON) Softball Canada is pleased to announce the following award winners who will be recognized at the Softball Canada Hall of Fame and Awards Banquet on November 12th, 2011 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Banquet will be held in conjunction with the Softball Canada Congress and Annual General Meeting, which will take place from November 10-12. As previously announced, Bill Barron (Builder, Newfoundland and Labrador), Tom Doucette (Coach, Nova Scotia), Todd King (Athlete, Nova Scotia), Tim Macumber (Athlete, Nova Scotia) and Bob Stanton (Builder, New Brunswick) will be inducted into the Softball Canada Hall of Fame during this Banquet.

The Home Run Sports Coach of the Year award will be presented to Jamie Wentworth from Enfield, Nova Scotia, who led the Murphy’s Fish & Chips Junior Eagles to a gold medal at the 2011 U23 Men’s Canadian Championship and has been a successful coach for over 23 years. Jamie has the ability to communicate and understand his players in a way that shows he cares about them, not only as players but as people, and is highly respected by players, parents and umpires.

Keith Pender, from St. John’s, Newfoundland, has been selected as the recipient of the Home Run Sports Umpire of the Year Award. A Level V umpire in Fastpitch and Level III in Slo-Pitch, Keith has been actively umpiring for 20 years, and his most outstanding attribute is the level of professionalism he carries on and off the field. He served as Softball Newfoundland and Labrador’s Umpire in Chief between 2005 and 2010, and in addition to umpiring over 100 games per year, he also watches just as many to help his fellow umpires develop their skills.

The Rose Hodgson Volunteer of the Year will be presented to Sherry Maher from Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. Sherry is Softball Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minor Director, a volunteer position she fulfills on a full-time basis during the summer months and evenings and weekends during the off-season. She is the driving force for minor softball in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the main reason Softball Canada initiatives such as Learn to Play, CANpitch and the NCCP have been filtered on to registered local softball association in the province.

This year’s recipients of the Claude Deschamps Memorial Fund are Kayla Richards from Stellarton, Nova Scotia and Myles Coldwell from Gays River, Nova Scotia.

Kayla Richards, a fourth year Bachelor of Arts student at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, is a Learn to Play Program Coordinator and head coach of the Subway Stingers U14 Girls Rep Team in the Stellarton and Area Minor Girls Softball Association. She previously played in that very association, and also competed for Team Nova Scotia at the 2009 Canada Summer Games in Prince Edward Island.

Myles Coldwell has just begun the third year of his Bachelor of Science in Human Kinetics degree at St. Francis Xavier University. This summer, he was a member of the Murphy’s Fish & Chips Junior Men’s team and won a gold medal at the U23 Men’s Canadian Championship in Owen Sound, ON. He was named an all-star outfielder at the event. He also won a silver medal at the 2010 Junior Men’s Canadian Championship held in St. Croix, NS.

The Ethel Boyce Memorial Award will be awarded to Shannon Galea from Oshawa, Ontario and Austin Brown from Tara, Ontario.

Shannon Galea is currently taking a one-year graduate diploma in Sport Business Management at Durham College. She previously completed an honours degree in Geography and Earth Sciences from McMaster in 2010, as well as a Bachelor of Education from the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology in 2011. This summer, she was a member of the Pickering Heat and competed in two Canadian Championships, winning a silver medal at the Junior (U23) Women’s and finishing seventh in the Senior Women’s category.

Austin Brown recently started his first year of a Business Administration degree at Conestoga College in Kitchener, ON. From the small community of Tara, ON, Brown was a member of the nearby Owen Sound Selects, and participated at the 2011 Pepsi U19 Men’s Canadian Championship in Fredericton, NB as a member of the gold-medal winning Wiarton Red Devils, taking Playoff Round co-MVP honours at the event.

Congratulations to all of this year’s award winners!

-SC-

For more information, please contact:

Gilles LeBlanc
Manager – Marketing and Communications
Softball Canada
gleblanc@softball.ca
(613) 523-3386 ext. 3105