Dads of the Calling Lake area will be grabbing their baseball gloves and hitting the field this Sunday for the first ever Father’s Day baseball and barbeque event.
On June 19, starting at 1 p.m. families from the Calling Lake area will fill up the local ball diamonds to celebrate the father figures in their lives.
“It’s a Father’s Day event, and to celebrate all the dads in our lives,” said event organizer Lance Cardinal. “That includes fathers, brothers, uncles and also guardians in our community. There’s a lot of father figures, whether they’re real fathers or not real fathers.”
The day will feature three different games, which include a family slow-pitch at 1 p.m., horseshoes at 3 p.m., and men’s fastball at 5 p.m. to cap off the day.
Cardinal added that their will also be a free barbeque for the entire day.
There’s no need to worry about registering, as teams will be created right before the games begin.
“We don’t want it to be too competitive where people bring in players; we want it to happen organically,” he said. “So we’ll divide up the crowd into a couple teams about a half our before the game. It’s mostly for fun.”
In other years, the Calling Lake community would host a fishing tournament on Father’s day. This year, Cardinal thought that baseball would get the families more involved in the day’s activities.
“We wanted to have an event where the moms, the dads, and the kids could all play together,” he said. “That was the priority for this year.”
“Now that it’s summertime, baseball seems to be the Number 1 sport in Calling Lake, and it’s more of a social sport that happens after work hours. Baseball seems to always bring everyone together.”
Cardinal said he expects to have over 200 people in attendance for the even, hailing the Calling Lake area. However, he noted that it is not just limited to the people of Calling Lake.
“We welcome anyone from out of Calling Lake – in the Wabasca area and the Athabasca area – to check it out,” he said. “And of course, the more chances we can come together as two communities and interact the better, and this is a great event to do that.”
