By Dr. Rug and Nived Coustom

Mr. Coustom!

It’s been far too long since I’ve had the pleasure of conversing with you regarding fastball in the Territory, it’s time to change that, stat. As I’m sure all of our well-versed readers are aware, the Territorials are fast approaching and this year they’re being held on the beautiful southern shores of Great Slave Lake in the resort town of Hay River. As the folks from the capital get ready to make the cruise down Highway 3 why don’t you and I take our own cruise down memory lane and look back at some of the most memorable moments from past Hay River tourneys. And if you want to throw in a bit of a preview of this weekend while we’re at it, why not?

(Dr. Rug additional note: For the sake of article length, this is memories from Fastball tourneys only; I excluded memories from curling trips, golf trips, slo-pitch trips, and general life moves to Hay River)

What do you say, Nived, are you ready to crank up the travel tunes and hit the highway with me?

Doctor Rugglington!

It has indeed been much too long since one of our scintillating collaborations, and what a setting for us to team back up and throw some stories out there for our readers. The Territorial Championships signify a turning point in the Northern fastball season as it marks our halfway point. Soon enough, our league games will be fighting the darkness brought on by the earlier sunset and our League Championships will be here before we know it. For now, though, I have no hesitation in stating my delight to reminisce some of our favorite (or most memorable) Giver River moments. The oasis that is Hay River never fails to entertain, and hopefully our article adds some foundation to this weekend’s festivities.   

The MLB has an All-Star game to commemorate the mid-point of their season and we have a Territorial championship. Hopefully our title game somehow ends in a tiebreaking home run derby, just as the MLB All-Star game did. You can play the role of Mr. Schwarber.

Now, before we dive into the Hay River memories, I need to take a moment to give a shout-out to the biggest legend in Hay River fastball history. When you think Hay River, you think Heat. When you think Heat, you think Heater Up™. When you think Heater Up™, you think of the legend, Tanya. So first and foremost, a huge shout-out to the most dedicated fastball fan in the north, the godmother of heckling, the epitome of the Hay River Heat. I can’t wait to have a beverage or two with you in the gardens this weekend!

Alrighty then, with that taken care of, let’s dive into those wonderful memories of Hay Riviera, take it away Mr. Coustom…

Trappers vs. O’s, Scorebook Controversy

Man, starting off with a bang here. This game had it all: big-time hits, big-time strikeouts, crazy plays in the outfield (involving a player absolutely toppling over the temporary fence that was installed at the time), umpire drama (shout-out Rob and Dennis), tension between teams, debatably the biggest scorekeeping controversy NWT fastball has ever seen; and a massive, massive, walk off home run.

Let’s set the stage. It’s 2017 Territorials, the Heat are trying to sort out Steve and the Blue Jays (now Prospectors) in one semi-final. In the other semi-final, the Orioles (now folded) and Trappers (also now folded) are absolutely going to war. Now, I consider my memory above average, but this is 8 years ago, and I still don’t even know what happened that day. So, forgive me if the details are a bit muddy. Thankfully, I’ve employed the help of a former Oriole and man who tops many of Doctor Rug’s Player Trade Value Rankings, Andy Williams, to help me out. Andy’s comments in italics.

Chad Hinchey was pitching for the O’s, and Sudsy for the Trappers. Both teams were throwing punches, but the O’s had the lead. It was a fast-paced, hard-nosed, competitive fastball game.

I took Sudsy deep to right for a 3-run shot, it was an absolute moon shot. But who cares about that.

I care, Andrew. It was the most despicable home run that Pine Point Field had ever seen at the time.

(Dr. Rug note: I also care Andy. I appreciate anytime anyone took Sudsy deep.)

(Dr. Rug note part 2: While we’re speaking of despicable home runs and Hay River, the hardest home run I ever gave up as a pitcher was on the mound in Hay River, versus the Heat. Todd Ashton absolutely crushed a pitch, annihilated it. It was hit so hard that it clipped a seagull’s wing about halfway up and still had enough momentum to clear the outfield fence by probably 40 feet. I’m 100% serious when I tell you this ball hit an actual seagull in the wing in mid-air and had no problem clearing the outfield fence easily. I still have nightmares about that home run.)

Moving on- It was the 5^th inning, and the O’s were up 5-2. The Trappers were up to bat (I was one of them), and there was some discussion between the home plate umpire (Rob Johnson), and the person in the scorekeeper’s booth. Nothing out of the ordinary. The O’s get out of the inning and go to hop on the bats.

Chad was pitching a gem and going strong. The Trappers big dogs come up to bat and we were able to get through it with no damage, then the O’s went to bat in the top of the sixth and put up another run.

More discussion between Rob and the scorekeeper, now the scorekeeper has come out of the booth and is standing at the backstop. OK, it’s getting a bit weird. The Trappers head into the dugout to get on the bats.

Rob is walking off the field. Why is Rob walking off the field?

Rob is going into the scorekeeper’s booth. Why is Rob going into the scorekeeper’s booth?

After what felt like an hour, Rob comes back on the field and calls captains to home plate to discuss something.

3 Orioles come out of the dugout to the home plate discussion.

1 Oriole goes up to the scorekeeper’s booth with their scorebook.

“What the f*ck is going on” was my thought.

Dennis joins the home plate conversation and informs Rob and the Orioles that the Trappers don’t have a scorebook. More Orioles come out. More Trappers come out. Someone from the O’s chirps the Trappers for not having a scorebook. Fraser Oliver tells them to shut up. Rob tells Fraser to shut up, Fraser calls Rob a “f*ckin idiot”, Rob threatens to throw Fraser out of the game if he so much as looks at him, Devin Case yanks Fraser out of the huddle (this was a significantly important decision). The umps inform both teams that the scorekeeper started scoring Oriole at-bats for the Trappers players, in the wrong order, and the wrong inning. The Umpires decide to return the game to the last moment the scorekeeper had correct: 5^th inning, 5-2 Orioles. The inning was replayed and the Orioles lost their run.

I forgot that we lost that run. Jesus what a cluster f*ck. Anyways, we get through that and move on to the sixth, and the Trappers big dogs were up to bat again somehow, I said what the f*ck. I went and talked to the umps again and after a discussion they also discovered the scorekeepers weren’t marking anything down in the Trappers side of the book, and the Trappers had no book. So it was determined that the big dogs for the Trappers could hit again, but the O’s had to continue their hitting order from where it was at. I strongly disagreed with this decision and informed Rob that the Orioles would be playing under protest.

I will add, and some former O’s may disagree with me here, but we also informed the umps that our batting order was being implemented incorrectly. To be specific, our order was implemented by the scorekeepers as 2-9-1 rather than 9-1-2. Regardless, we chipped away and added a run to make the score 5-3. We get to the bottom of the 7^th, and Fraser Oliver comes up to bat for the third time in three innings (!!!) due to the scorekeeping blunder. With 2 guys on base, Fraser puts one over the right field fence to end the game with a walk off ding-dong.

Well surprise surprise… O’s lost. If I remember correctly I don’t believe I shook anyone’s hands, I left the field immediately and beat the umps and tournament organizers to the umps building to discuss my protest. It was determined that the situation was a major screw up, but there was no time to replay the game from that moment. The rest of the night was a little fuzzy for me after that.

In my 15 years of playing fastball, I haven’t been involved in anything that scandalous and don’t think I ever will be again.

Vote for Mitch!

Wow. What a classic start to the Hay River memories. Such a gong show. A few quick comments before we head onto the next memory:

1. Props to whomever from the O’s chirped the Trappers for not having a scorebook. A Dr. Rug pet peeve throughout my fastball career is teams that don’t keep their own scorebook. Have you learned nothing from decades of Jimmy stats?
   1. There’s no way the Trappers should have benefitted in any way whatsoever from their decision not to keep a scorebook. They should have had to bat 7-9 three times in a row for their ineptitude. Heck, they should have had to put Marchiori into the line-up for Fraser as a punishment.
2. What’s the point of being able to protest if the umps can just shut it down with a “Well, you’re right, we f*cked up, but we don’t have time so too bad.”
3. Devin Case. All he does is find new ways to come up clutch. This time by pulling Fraser out of the huddle before Rob tossed him.
4. Bottom line for the O’s, simple solution, don’t let Fraser hit a three-run shot in the bottom of 7.

The Driving

Every good Yellowknife to Hay River trip, or vice versa, starts out with the drive. I’ve driven highway 3 more times than I can count and I’m sure that everyone that’s made the drive has at least a few tales they could regale us with. A handful of my favourites…

• Chris Cahoon jumps in the vehicle with Rusty (a Diamondbacks legend), gives him a nice, friendly, “Mornin’”…  and that was the last word that Cahoon is able to get in on the entire 4+ hour drive which I’m sure felt more like a 40+ hour drive. (note: Ask Cahoon about that trip, he’ll give you details about Rusty that you never knew you needed to know)
• Many moons ago I hopped into Bruce’s work van for the drive down to Territorials, we got almost halfway to Behchoko before it broke down. Bruce knew that Andy Tereposki was coming along soon so we hunkered down to wait for him. Actually, there was no hunkering down, instead we pulled out Bruce’s golf clubs and crushed drives along the highway waiting for Tereposki to arrive. Very Tin Cup-esque. When I say this was “many moons ago” I mean this was wayyyyy back in the day. Sammy was still car seat age. Let me just say that riding in the backseat of an F-150 with Sammy strapped into a car seat in between Bruce and myself made for one interesting drive.
• My own drive down with the Vette, he was driving, I was riding shotgun. I’ve never seen a human being smoke that much marijuana in that period of time. If you’ve ever run into me in the beer gardens, you know I enjoy a cold beverage or two from time to time. Well, I packed a few of my favourite cold beverages for this drive and drank more of them than any reasonable adult should over the course of the drive. Yet for every beverage that I had, I swear that the CigarVette had two joints. If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have thought it humanly possible. He was like the Joey Chestnut of weed.

• Speaking of cold beverages and that drive, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the record holder for beverages consumed on the route, Mr. T. Courtoreille. Travelling from HR to YK he managed to down an unbelievable 21 beverages. This was back in the day with a mid-trip ferry break, but nonetheless, that is unbelievably impressive!! I tried to take a run at that number once or twice, I was completely unsuccessful in every way possible.
• This one wasn’t a HR to YK drive, but I remember back in my Slades days (we’re going way back here again), we had a crew of us that drove my motorhome to Simpson and back for the Territorials. The drive home was so much fun that we got back to YK, parked in front of my house, and proceed to continue partying in the motorhome on the side of the road until about 6:30 the next morning. If I recall correctly (which is doubtful), a co-worker of J. Campbell’s happen to see him stumbling home in his Slades jersey at 6:45am that Monday when he was supposed to be at work 15 minutes later.

Suffice to say, stories like these are the reason I’m driving down solo on Thursday evening.

(Dr. Rug Note: Due to the family friendly nature of this website, please note that all “beverages” referred to in the previous item were of course, non-alcoholic. And all smokes were strictly legal cigarettes, not marijuana… and especially not marijuana before it was legal.)

Brent’s Walk-Off Bloop Against Steve

This game preceded another game on this list. It was easily the most nervous I had been watching a fastball game. It was Giants vs Prospectors in the semi-final. We showed up to the field, a few guys walked over to check the score. I remember hearing the guys practically sprinting back to the truck: “you’re not gonna believe this”

PROSPECTORS: 0

GIANTS: 7

In the first inning.

(This is my theoretical scoreboard, of course).

The Prospectors picked the wrong time to rest Steve and the Giants took advantage. Prospectors hoped it wasn’t too late and put Steve in to pitch – and boy did he ever. He held the Giants to their 7 runs for the next 6 innings while his team chipped away. Prospectors managed to tie it up and go into extras. In the top of the 8^th, Prospectors score a run. In the bottom, the Giants match them. In the top of the 9^th, the Prospectors can’t cash in. In the bottom of the 9^th, Jaden Beck strikes out.

But it’s a passed ball. Don’t give Jaden Beck a passed ball.

Jaden then steals second, and Brent Hinchey comes up to bat. With that old school, Ernie Banks-esque batting stance. He’s fouling off pitch after pitch, until… bloop. Right over the second baseman and into right field. Jaden scores the run to end the game. My blood pressure then returned to normal after an extended period of time at a dangerous level. The dart intake between Vette and Garrett must have been astronomical during this game.

I just have a few Dr. Rug comments to add to this well told recap.

First off, in the Prospectors defense they did have a former Territorial championship pitcher, Tinger, pitching for them that tournament so it’s not like they were throwing any old scrub out on the mound in Steve’s place. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tinger give up 7 runs in less than an inning. It wasn’t an outrageous decision, but yeah, that was certainly a choice. And, come to think of it, Tinger was an O at one point which may partially explain the playoff meltdown.

Secondly, I think you’re selling Jaden short in your recap, I’m pretty sure he stole second, and then stole third, prior to Brent’s Bloop. And after the game he told me he what have stolen home too if needed. Love that heart and I wish I had that speed.

This game was a classic. Who would have thought that it was, at best, the third most memorable part of the weekend. But of course, that weekend also had…

The Coin Flip

Really, there’s nothing to be said here that hasn’t already been said. Seriously, I wrote something like 15 pages of brilliance about this incident already, there’s nothing else to add.

Covid Non-Sanctioned Territorials

Ah, yes. The non-Territorials, Territorials. As all of you probably remember, COVID was a b*tch, and ruined many, many things. What we did learn through COVID though, is that NOTHING kills a fastball tournament (with exception to wildfires, as we learned last year. Also tornadoes could probably do it, or mass amounts of bears taking control of a city. Anyways, I digress).

(Dr. Rug note: I feel like if mass amounts of bears took control of our city they’d likely make us play the Territorials for their own entertainment and betting purposes. The losers would probably be eaten first, but we’d still play. Anyways, I also digress.)

The 2020 Territorial championships were rebranded to the Keith Broadhead Memorial Tournament. The boys in Hay Bush followed those COVID guidelines to the absolute letter, so a bunch of us could play ball. The tournament featured The HBC Cardinals, Trappers, Hay River Heat & Pirates, and the Fort Simpson Twins. All in all, it was a great weekend that featured some great ball. Trappers and Cardinals in the finals, which featured a 7^th inning double by Ryan Nichols for the Cards, followed by a walk-off single from Devin Penney to win the tournament. During the asscrack times COVID presented us with, this tournament stands out to me as it made things feel somewhat normal for the first time in about 5 months. Nothing grounds you quite like a freshly marked ball field, music playing over poor quality speakers, a beer gardens, and Tanya’s trademarked Heeaaterrrrr uppp!!!

On a side note- as only 2 teams from YK attended, players jumped on new teams for the weekend. Us Trappers were lucky enough to acquire Steve squared for the weekend. This was my first time playing with Steve Thomas (I had played with wildcard before- if you want a dictionary definition of “teammate”, he’s it) and I just want to say to the current Prospector teammates of Steve Thomas:

Please, for the love of God, in the name of all things holy; appreciate what you have. Get in the cage, and practice. Don’t stop at Winks for a corn dog before the game, do it after. He is an absolute Adonis, ultra-competitive, and will run through a wall for his team.

I was offering that guy foot rubs and Gatorade every 17 minutes. He carries teams with confidence and absolutely produces. I got to read a book in the outfield one game because he said, “I won’t let any balls get out of the infield guys”, and he did it. That was the first book I had read in 7 years, and while reading still sucks, I was able to do it. Steve deserves better.

Sub-Arctic Camping at the Field

It’s too bad that the Scrubs aren’t around anymore, because everyone should experience witnessing this for the first time. In my first Hay River ball tournament as a 17-year-old, showing up to the field on Saturday morning, and a man emerges from the forest beside the ball park. He’s wearing a ball jersey, no pants, ball cap, still half asleep, and a lit dart in his mouth. I turned to one of my teammates, with I’m assuming a look of utter and complete disbelief on my face because I didn’t say anything before I was told, “Oh that’s just Sub Arctic, that’s who we’re playing”. I was without words- and then more of them started emerging, it was like the scene from Field of Dreams. One after another, all of them not wearing at least one article of clothing, right out of the woods and right into the dugout. Uniformed up and ready to go in 15 minutes- it was extremely impressive. Those guys LIVED “tournament ball”. From the heavily wooded areas of Hay River, to the field, to the gardens, to the field, gardens, then back to the woods. Living off concession food and adult beverages for the weekend, while maintaining the ability to play games. I feel lucky that I was able to witness that.

In your previous memory you talked about Steve being the dictionary definition of teammate. Before Steve graced us with his presence, the boys from Sub-Arctic took this to a whole new level. These guys were more than a team, they were a family. A dysfunctional family, yes, but a tight-knit dysfunctional family. At times, they may have fought like siblings (and I think there was at least a couple of teammate scraps during this specific tournament in particular), but they also stuck up for one another like blood. Mardie might yell at his hung-over brethren when they booted the third easy grounder of the inning, but don’t you dare say a bad word about any of them if you weren’t on the team, lest you face the wrath of the entire squad. These guys didn’t win a lot of tournaments, but they always showed up, gave it their all, and put forth a competitive effort. Heart, grit, guts… that was Scrub-Arctic. Oh, and drinking the gardens dry and smoking til their lungs spontaneously combusted, that was Scrub-Arctic too.

RIP Scrubs, we miss you.

I think we should petition Hay River to rename “Glenn Smith Field” to “Scrub-Arctic Field” in honour of their camping grounds.

The Coustoms

Any of our readers who listen to our podcast should already be aware of how Mr. Coustom became Mr. Coustom (at least I think so, I can’t remember which podcast stories have actually been published to date, and which are still waiting in post-production purgatory), but let’s give it a quick run through again.

I forget which year this was but the Diamondbacks were preparing for a Territorials tournament and liking our chances, however, we were a few bodies short for the trip down to Hay River. To fill the gap our one Hinchey at the time suggested that perhaps we should pick up everyone in fastball world that he was related to. Great idea. Let’s do it. But, with added bodies came the need for added uniforms. The D-Backs jerseys at the time weren’t necessarily typical, off-the-rack, Diamondback jerseys so the need for additional jerseys required a little bit of searching. Eventually, a website was found that offer “Custom” jerseys of the exact style we were looking for. Excellent. I quickly checked with our new recruits for preferred numbers and placed an order through this very legitimate looking website. Being the epitome of a “team” as opposed to a group of individuals, the HBC squad at the time of course did not have names on our jerseys, only numbers. So when placing my order, in the website field that asked for “Custom Name:” I obviously left it blank, filling in only the “Custom Number:” field with the appropriate numbers.

Fast forward 3-6 weeks and the new jerseys had made the arduous journey from some overseas sweatshop to my front door. I opened the package to find some high-quality, good-looking jerseys… then I flipped them over to the back.

Somehow leaving the “Custom Name:” field blank had resulted in “Custom” being used as the name. But not only that, they also mis-spelt “Custom”. Classic.

Now I’m not sure if the sweatshop also infused these jerseys with some sort of transdermal steroids, but when the Hincheys put these bad boys on it took their game to a whole new level (which is saying something given the already sky-high Hinchey baseline level). Their play that weekend was otherworldly, the Diamondbacks cruised to the Territorial championship, and the legend of the Coustom brothers was born.

Backpack

Two pretty straightforward pieces of advice to all the young fastball wannabes out there,

#1. If you’re underage and headed into a licensed dance, don’t wear a backpack.

#2. If you’re underage and headed into a licensed dance, do not attempt to smuggle outside alcohol in in your backpack.

Trappers vs. Heat: The Longest Semifinal Ever

I honestly never want to experience this ever again. It was dreadful and was the first time I had ever hated playing fastball.

This game followed the aforementioned Giants v Prospectors game in which Brent Hinchey hit the bloop walkoff. That game was unreal, and I think a few people thought there was no way the game could be topped, from an entertainment standpoint.

Hold my beer, Said the Fastball gods.

Trappers and Heat take the field in a Territorials semi-final game. For us on the Trappers, we thought: “Either we are gonna hammer them or they are gonna hammer us. There’s no in-between”. Turns out, there is an in-between. That in-between, is both teams hammering each other.

There are 3 moments I distinctly remember from this game:

• Being in mercy territory on the providing side
• Being in mercy territory on the receiving side
• Seriously contemplating my retirement from fastball on the spot, and walking off the field (I believe this was in the 5^th inning)

The Trappers started on the bats, and we started hot. I think we put up 6 or 7 in the first inning. We keep them at 0. Another inning goes by and the Heat score some, and I’m thinking, “OK, we got this, just have to hold them”. I believe we were up 10-3, if we add some more and play solid D, we got ourselves a mercy.

Then the winds shifted. The Heat found the bottle of MJ’s Secret Stuff from Space Jam, and put up 8 runs in one inning. Then 8 runs in the next. We put up a couple measly runs, but after those 2 innings, it was 19-12 Heat. Of those 16 runs, I will also note that half of them were from Heat grand slams. Half. Talk about a kick in the d*ck.

We’re now up to bat in the 4^th inning, and we’ve played what feels like 2 full games already. It was also a Sunday, and it was very hot; so guys are tired and sore and dehydrated. Talk about feeling the highs and lows of a fastball game. Our dugout went from laughter and laid back to depressed and exhausted. I remember looking at my phone to check the time and thinking, holy shit, it’s been almost 2 hours of this. THEN, thinking, holy shit, we’re only halfway through the game. We were on our third game of the day and the dugout was looking a bit depleted. The Heat were roaring away as they do, and it didn’t help us that they had home field advantage. If we were gonna do this, we needed a spark. That spark, was none other than Joey Borkovic.

Boys, he said; we just gotta score more runs than them. Sound advice, Joey. At that point, our brains were almost dried up from the sun and amount of games, and I don’t think we could process anything more complicated than that. Time to go to work.

(Dr. Rug note: Props to Borko! I will take this opportunity to note that Borko made the greatest catch that I’ve ever seen during a tournament in Hay River. And by greatest I’ve ever seen, I mean EVER. Better than any other fastball catch, better than any baseball catch, better than any highlight that TWIB ever showed. I can’t even describe it but if you were there for it, you know what I’m talking about.)

Before we knew it, we had the lead again. 21-19. Top of 6.

The Heat clap back. 21-23. Bottom of 6.

We push the pedal down further. 26-23. Top of 7.

The Heat make a final push but come up short, as the Trappers take the game by a final score of 26-24. A total of 50 runs scored in the game. Good grief. By the end of it, we had used up almost 4 pages of our scorebook (we learned from the O’s game previously mentioned and had a scorebook now).

We were informed afterwards that the game took 3 hours and 47 minutes. I wanted to throw up, I was so angry. It was the closest thing to torture I have ever experienced, and it’s exactly why I love Territorials.

Bruce Eats Baseballs and Hot Dogs

This was absolute insanity, and to be honest it’s a miracle that Bruce walked away from this. It was my first Hay River territorials, on the then-named HBC Diamondbacks. Bruce, and Paul Gard were doing most of the work on the mound that weekend. As I was still new to fastball, player/manger/role model Mike Auge had thrown me around in a couple different positions to find what stuck. Through his real-time research, he found that catcher was the position I showed the most promise at, and that’s where I hunkered down for the rest of the weekend. Which provided me with a view unlike any other for what transpired.

We were facing off against the Slades, and from what I was told at the time, these two teams had a storied rivalry. Most notably (correct me if I’m wrong here, Doctor), Mike Auge, Darin Strain, and Bruce Waugh departed the Slades dynasty to create the HBC Diamondbacks.

Dr. Rug interjection: To start with it was just Darin and I that departed from the Slades dynasty to create the Diamondbacks with a squad of misfits (shout-out Larry Tolton!!). Bruce joined us a couple of years later when he wanted to pitch more and Mitch was hogging all the mound time for Slades. Also, you just inadvertently sent me on an hours long deep dive through old emails trying to track down our championship photo from that first year. I was unsuccessful but I did manage to track down our team roster and stats from year 1 along with a team photo from year 3.

Fun fact: Besides myself, there are three other original Diamondbacks still in the league, can you guess who?

Robbie Andrews and Chris Kelln are the easy two to get, the last one is a lot harder.

Give up?

None other than Mr. Craig Halifax (who ironically is now with Slades) played with us that first year of the Diamondbacks.

Here’s a throwback team photo from year 3 of the HBC Diamondbacks, by this point in time Bruce had made the move over from Slades.

As this was my first year on HBC, I could tell there was a little extra on the line for both teams in this game. They not only wanted the win, but they also wanted the bragging rights.

Fast forward- we’re in the middle of the game if I recall correctly. Maybe the 3^rd or 4^th innings. Brucey is doing his thing on the mound, either striking guys out or pelting the backstop. Ryan Strain comes up to bat. Ryan Strain is very good at hitting fastballs, so I’m just trying to keep Bruce off the plate and pitch around the zone. Bruce is doing well, but Ryan manages to square one up.

And I mean, he COMPLETELY squares up the ball. Right on the sweet spot of the bat, utterly destroys the ball- which is a comebacker right at Bruce. To be specific, right at Bruce’s face.

You could call this the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. That’s an analogy I think, right?

The sound of the ball hitting Bruce’s mouth was almost as loud as the sound of the ball off Ryan’s bat. The ball hadn’t even hit the ground, and I heard the ump (James McCarthy) yell behind me: TIME! BATTER- GO TO FIRST. I’m not sure what the rule is on this, but James made the right decision. If anyone other than Bruce took that ball in the face, they would still be in a coma today.

Bruce (understandably) goes down to the ground, the team rushes to his aid. Before anyone can get in proximity, Bruce is already up on one knee and reassures us: “I’m OK, guys. I’m OK”. Bruce gets up on his own accord, walks off the diamond, into the truck and off to the Health Centre. 2 minutes after eating a 100mph line drive. Award this guy the Order of Canada, give him a purple heart or a stat holiday- because 99.99% of people would not walk away from that. Now, you may be reading this and think, “woah, a line drive to the mouth. Bruce probably lost a bunch of teeth or broke his jaw”.

HA!

All the ‘weaklings’ out there would probably deal with some sort of substantial damage from a hot shot to the chops. But not Bruce, Bruce returned to the field a mere hour and a half later. His treatment? 6 stitches on the inside of his lip. He was eating a hot dog within 20 minutes of getting back to the field. He even claimed that the ketchup irritating his cut was more painful than the line drive himself.

I will never forget seeing that from behind the plate. I will also never forget that Bruce Waugh is the toughest person in the entire existence of human history.

Not only was Bruce eating a hot dog 20 minutes later, he also grabbed a chunk of his busted up lip and ripped it out of his own mouth because it was getting in the way of him enjoying his hot dog. The man is a beast. But as Bruce has told many a fastball player after hitting them with a pitch, “It’s just a ball. You’re not scared of this, are you? It’s just a little ball.” If you’re going to talk the talk, you walk the walk. And you eat the hot dog. And the ball.  

I will also note that Ryan Strain was one of the top 5 scariest guys to pitch against because he always hit the ball hard, and he always hit the ball straight up the middle. The other 4 guys that round out that top 5 for the exact same reasons are the 3 Hinchey brothers, and Devin F*cking Case.

And on that note, it’s time to bring this trip down memory lane to an end so that I can fuel up and start my real-life trip down to Hay River. As always, thank you for joining me in this article and re-hashing some of the best times.

Well, Doctor Rug; I appreciate the opportunity to dig in and remember some of our favorite Hay River Territorials moments. I don’t always get excited over having to hop in the truck and get on the highway, but there is a certain giddy-ness I now feel for this weekend after having strolled down memory lane. It was enjoyable to remember those weekends. The hot weather, the poor weather, the gauntlets that have been run, the controversies; ultimately- the moments. It’s why we do this, right? Yes, it is fun to go down to Hay River and play in a competitive ball tournament, but it’s more enjoyable to be provided with months of discussion over stories and memories that were created in the 72 hours we were out of YK.

For anyone attending their first Territorials this weekend, just know 2 rules:

1. Expect the unexpected
2. There are no rules

Also, while I’m already typing this all out, here’s my prediction for the weekend for each team:

• Prospectors: Steve does his thing, but the supporting cast can’t get the team over the hump. If Wildcard is going this weekend, he has the most fun of any Prospector not named Dusty.
• Giants: The Banana Boys continue their tournament slump. They will put in great performances at the Campground and Golf Course, but it won’t translate to the field. Landon hits the Giants only home run on the weekend.
• Rockies: The defending champs have employed some help from the boys in Inuvik, but Case will be haunted by the ghosts of “Backpack”, and it will translate to the rest of the team. Johnny White orders all the secret menu items from the Rooster. They lose in the finals to…
• The Heat. That’s right- the Heat will keep the trophy in the South Slave for the first time in 10 years. Glenn declares a municipal holiday, Terry and Curtis go on a national TV Tour. Tanya’s Heeaaterrrrr uppp!!! is sold to Universal Records and used by Lil Wayne on his next album. The town holds a parade and every building is painted with Heat colors. The celebration lasts until January.

Are my predictions accurate? Probably not, I’m no rocket scientologist or advanced metrics savant. But do I get to make predictions, and you don’t? Yes, because I am in the article and unless your name is Doctor Rug, you aren’t. So shut the hell up.

See you all this weekend on the sandy shores of Hay River!

Well said Mr. Coustom, well said.

And since my last set of predictions failed so miserably I’m going to refrain from making any predictions for this weekend other than a good time being had by all. Good luck to all the teams and players making the trek down to Hay River this weekend; go out there and make some life-long memories!