Newfoundland Celebrates Canada Day Weekend With Rumble on the Rock
June 14, 2016
St. John's, NL - Newfoundland Celebrates Canada Day Weekend With Rumble on the Rock
St.John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, with a storied history of its own will celebrate the Canada Day weekend by hosting some of the greatest fastpitch softball players in the world for what many are calling " the rumble on the Rock." This first time tournament event scheduled for June 30 through July 2, will serve as a qualifying tournament for one of the local participating teams to attend the 2017 International Softball Congress ( ISC) World Tournament in Grand Rapids Michigan. For many of the hardy east coast boys this would be a dream come true to finally qualify to play in the  world's greatest club tournament.
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Tournament chairman, John Hill, himself a longtime first-sacker for the great Newfoundland Greensleaves teams, has worked long and hard to put together a weekend filled with the best of music, camaraderie and fastball competition. With fastball the primary focus the lineup of teams includes the 3-time straight ISC World Champion Hill United Chiefs, the 2015 ISC finalists and #2 ranked ISC team the Toronto Gators, and 3 of St.John's best club teams in Kelly's Pub, the Hitmen and The Bigs. The umpiring crew will be led by ISC veteran and east coaster, Lou Davis.
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"We are excited to have both the Chiefs and the Gators attending this tournament as it provides both an opportunity for the fans to see some of the best ball players in the world and for our local guys to test their skills against two legendary teams," said Hill. " In the tradition of Newfoundland fastball you can bet these local boys will go down swinging regardless of the game scores." As an added incentive for two of the teams, former World Champion Chief pitchers Grant Patterson and Don Scott will toe the rubber with the locals that weekend.Â
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The Chiefs are in fact acting as co-hosts and a primary sponsor for this event as a way of saying thanks to the local players, Â who have been at the forefront of the Hill United success over the past 4 years. " We are fortunate to have some of the best players in the world on our roster, but more importantly the character and tenacity of the east coast boys is the heart that drives the Chiefs success", said Hill United co-sponsor and GM, Bryan Porter. " Taking the team to St.John's is just a small way we can thanks for your sacrifices to travel west so many weekends each summer."
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With the tournament schedule set to be released this week, the tournament gets underway on Thursday June 30 with games at 6:00 and 8:00 pm. There will be another 6 games on on Canada Day and playoffs on Saturday. The final is scheduled at 7:00 pm on Saturday evening.
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As always the ball park will be buzzing with down east music in the evenings, great food concessions and a refreshment tent for all the fans to take in the action on the field.
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The weekend will also feature a couple very poignant ceremonies before both the Thursday and Friday games, just prior to 6:00 pm game times. Colin Abbott, a legendary player and the first ever ISC Hall of Fame inductee from Newfoundland will be honoured in one of these ceremonies.
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The final details of this truly exciting weekend will be released shortly along with the schedule and more on the ceremonies to honour the "boys from the Rock".
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