City has to live up to host status again

Brandon will once again be able to prove its bona fides as a national-event host in 2027, with a pair of high-level events being held in the city.

With the recent announcement that the Telus Cup is coming in April and the older news that Softball Canada’s under-17 national girls championship will be here from Aug. 11 to 15, the Wheat City will once again be called upon to deliver.

Happily, it’s a city that believes it has a uniquely good group of volunteers and facilities that make events here a success.

It may be worth considering the idea is a universal conceit. If you were to ask the good folks of cities like Red Deer or Kamloops or Fredericton or Charlottetown, they would also likely tell some version of the idea that their volunteers are universally recognized as among the best in Canada and that’s why so many events keep coming to their city.

The truth is that are only a few dozen cities in Canada that are capable of handling the larger events because of constraints on things like hotels, restaurants and facilities. And there are plenty of those events to go around in a variety of sports.

But that doesn’t make the honour of hosting one of them any less tangible.

It will be the second time Brandon has hosted a Softball Canada event at the Ashley Neufeld Softball Complex, which officially opened in 2017. In 2023, the U15 playdowns came to Brandon, and Softball Canada president Scott Neiles was duly impressed by the facility.

“When I look at the continued growth over the past few years, every time you come out here you just go ‘Wow, this is pretty special,’” Neiles said in 2023 about the complex. “Having been to a number of Canadian championships across the land, this is as good as any because you have a little bit of separation (between diamonds) but at the same time, everything is here … I’m at the point now where you look at something like this, and it’s ‘Why couldn’t you host a world championship here?’

“This won’t be their last Canadian championship.”

The U15 nationals ended up getting hit hard by rain that summer, and while it was a demoralized and exhausted team of volunteers by the end of the week, they deserved credit for the work they did in delivering a first-rate event despite fifth-rate weather conditions.

Since then, the local softball community was awarded the first-ever boys and girls U13 western Canadian playdowns — you want the host template set by people you trust — and a number of provincial championships.

The Telus Cup, which is Canada’s U18 national hockey championship, has been here before. In 1994, the Regina Pat Canadians defeated the Red Deer Chiefs 3-2 in double overtime in a tournament that included future National Hockey League stars Daniel Brière and Chris Mason. Brandon famously won the tournament in 2004 in Kenora and the Wheat Kings fell in the final in 2024 in Sydney, N.S.

As host, less is expected of the teams than the people who make the events hum. It seems like many of the same people step up year after year to make Brandon shine on the national stage, so it would be nice to see some new faces pitching in next year.

Let’s hope after Brandon’s two chances to host some of the best young teams in Canada, visitors leave thinking about the great people they met, the terrific venues the games were hosted in and the quality of the events themselves.

And while it may not be a uniquely Brandon phenomenon, it’s still one worth taking some pride in.