Cold day for a cool sport

The hospital ballfield by Kateri Memorial Hospital is usually the site of team sports when it’s 20 C, not -20 C.

And yet, on Wednesday, that’s exactly what happened as the Kahnawake Youth Center (KYC) held Organizational Soccer Baseball as part of this year’s Winter Carnival.

Originally, six teams had signed up for Wednesday afternoon’s tournament, but by the time the first pitch was rolled, only two teams were there to compete: Team KYC and Team Tewatohnhi’saktha.

“We changed some stuff on the fly to make it work,” said Cheyanne McComber, community and family events coordinator for KYC.

“Some of the teams dropped out because they could not get out of work, some told us that it was too cold, and some just did not come.”

Despite the mitigating circumstances, both teams still had a great time on the field. Teammates cheered each other on, both at the plate and in the field, and laughs and cheers definitely outweighed the complaints about the cold.

McComber, who played for team KYC, said she was indeed having a lot of fun, in spite of the cold.

Even though it has been a quite cold couple of weeks in town, she said that she, and others, have been greatly enjoying the outdoor events this year, including soccer baseball.

“Usually we lock ourselves indoors when it gets cold out, so it gets people to come outdoors for two weeks and get active,” said McComber.

The events, including soccer baseball, also served to bring community members together.

“The goal of the event is to get people to bond with people from town they might not see often that work in other organizations,” said McComber.

She was speaking from experience: Annie Marquis, Tewatohnhi’saktha’s communications generalist, helped organize the event and is someone McComber only rarely sees, even though they are friends.

“Usually, I only get to see her during the summer, when we play softball together,” said McComber.

Marquis said that during the planning stages of the Winter Carnival, she brought forward the idea of introducing soccer baseball, a game many have grown up playing with and, even if they have not, is easy to figure out.

For those not in the know, soccer baseball is exactly what it sounds like - you play with baseball rules, but instead of hitting a ball with a bat, you have to kick the ball.

The snow covering the field was kept in place, apart from a clearing of the basepaths to allow for easier running.

The snow was both a hinderance and a benefit, on both sides of the ball. For example, the thick, soft snow usually stopped the large, light ball dead in its tracks, meaning hits that did not stay in the air for very long stayed in the infield. But, also, inaccurate throws suffered from the same result, with anything off the mark softly landing in the middle of the diamond and staying there.

“It was different because you’re playing it in the snow, it was a lot more work,” said Marquis.

“While we were waiting to start, I was freezing, and I could not feel my feet, but once we started playing my body warmed up and I actually got really warm.”

More brazen defenders also took advantage of the snow to perform acrobatic catches, or dive towards the bases to get runners out.

Team KYC ended up coming out on top, winning 8-2 over Team Tewatohnhi’saktha.

The last day of the Winter Carnival is today, Friday, and will feature the famous Polar Plunge, happening at the youth center at 12:15 p.m. Money raised by the plungers will go towards the KYC’s travel and exchanges program.

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