NCABL FALL MEETING SET FOR NOVEMBER 9

Posted November 8, 2013


Governors from all ten of the North Central Alberta Baseball League franchises will meet on Saturday November 9 at the St Albert Minor Baseball Association clubhouse at Legion Memorial Ballpark to discuss the upcoming 2014 season. Traditionally the NCABL Fall Meeting marks a chance for the league governors to meet to discuss the season that just wrapped up as well as begin laying the framework for the new season a few months away. Formal discussions around changes to the league will take place at the meeting as NCABL Commissioner Paul Riopel has another full day agenda schedule. 

Current Axemen player/coach Jordan Riopel will lead the Axemen delegation at the Fall Meeting as a voting member of the NCABL Governors. The role is not unfamiliar to Riopel, who was a Governor along with Wes Harrison from 2008 - 2010 before giving way to Kris Kushnerick to take on a governor role.

Items scheduled for the meeting include traditional topics such as 2013 club reports from each of the franchises, any proposed changes to the NCABL League Manual as well as a full review of the very thorough NCABL League Manual. By the end of the meeting the governors will have also voted on dates for the start of the 2014 NCABL season as well as the date and location of the 2014 NCABL All-Star Game and the official end date to the 2014 NCABL season. This year's agenda has some interesting items listed which may change the way the NCABL operates in 2014 in more ways than potential new clubs joining the league. 

A proposal by former St Albert Cardinals Manager Ray Brown, who is set to take over the Western Major Baseball League's Edmonton Prospects in 2014, would see an open roster rule allowing players from the NCABL to bounce back and forth between the Edmonton Prospects and the St Albert Cardinals of the NCABL with the hope of growing the game and the league. The proposal also outlines that the open roster rule would allow players who become classified as over age for the WMBL to be exposed to senior men's baseball with the NCABL and its ten franchises so that they would have somewhere to play after their WMBL careers were over. It is a proposal that the governors will have to read through carefully and then vote on in order to take effect for the 2014 season. It will be interesting to see what the governors do with the proposal as it definitely has some pros and cons for both the NCABL and the teams within the league especially since the NCABL has traditionally been fairly tight with roster rules in the past.

A second major discussion will see the governors look at the logistics of moving away from the NCABL's traditional tournament schedule which comprises of six tournaments over the summer and towards expanding the league schedule from its eighteen game schedule in 2013. Currently each team plays two games against every opponenent in the league but the proposal could see that jump to playing each team three or four times in a season with an increase of weekend play in terms of double headers. The governors will have to look at the impact of increasing the number of games in a league that is still considered a working man's league with weekend tournaments and double headers becoming more and more difficult to fill out a roster. In 2013 the Axemen saw multiple stretches of the season with seven to nine day breaks in between games, one would have to guess that should the league move into an expanded regular season schedule, those breaks between games would be eliminated in favor of a twice per week schedule minimum. 

Commissioner Paul Riopel will also give the NCABL governors an update on the status of future the NCABL's semi-final series weekend in Westlock every August. Traditionally the league has held the semi-finals in Westlock to coincide with a local rodeo and fair with the intentions of exposing the league to the public with all four playoff teams playing on the same weekend at the same baseball field. A drawback to the setup of the semi-finals is the lack of advantage for most of the playoff teams since they have to travel one to two hours to have "home field advantage". In 2012 the Axemen took on the fourth place Sherwood Park Athletics over two days in Westlock while 2013 saw the Axemen take on the fourth place Westlock Red Lions in a three game series. With the series being played in Westlock the fight for a higher spot in the standings and advantage that comes with it will only be seen in the NCABL Championship Series. Logistically the organization of the event in one location makes sense for promoting the league as well as for the scheduling of umpires which would be more difficult if the two semi-final series were to be played at the same time in two different locations. 

So while much of the meeting is thought to be rather routine, there are a couple items which could see some major changes to the NCABL in 2014. Axemen fans can stay up to date by checking back on our website after the meeting or by following the Axemen on Twitter @camroseaxemen

 

 



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