A softball tournament will be returning to Aldersyde this weekend.

The National Softball Athletics (NSA) organization will be hosting the Indoor World Series Championships at the Cavalry FC Fieldhouse, for the seventh year.

"NSA Canada Slow-pitch runs two Indoor World Series Events per year, and we run them at the same time, concurrently," explains Joe Rose, who is in charge of Marketing, Promotions, and Sponsorships with NSA Canada Slow-pitch. "One in Ontario, in Whitby, and the other is at the Fieldhouse in Okotoks. We partnered with them, approximately, seven years now. The event has grown from, initially 30 teams to now, we are sold out at 86 teams."

During the event, teams will be playing on the three different diamonds continuously from 4:10 p.m. on February 16 to 6:30 p.m. on Monday, February 19.

The first pitch on all three diamonds will happen at 4:10 p.m.

"We have a mix of co-ed teams, men's teams, and women's teams and this year they are all from Western Canada," Rose says. "We have teams participating from Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, with some participants that have joined these teams from as far away as Ontario and Manitoba."

The teams that are competing at this tournament are filled with a variety of players with different skill levels and different ages.

The youngest player is 18, while there is also a 67-year-old player competing.

"It's recreational slow pitch, so we get a mixed bag. Players, they use what we call our PCS. It's our Player Classification System and they have rankings," Rose says. "We have ball players that play slow pitch, we have some that are coming from teams that participated for Team Canada, actually. And then we have right down to our recreational division. Which is just folks getting out to play the game. But they're all in their own pools and they compete at their level."

While this is a softball tournament, it's not like traditional softball.

"This event's a little unique. In that we play on, essentially, hockey sized rinks and we play baseball. So, the ball is live off the boards, it's live off the netting. It can go in and out of the bench. It's very quirky. But this event over the last three years, since we exited COVID, it's become a must-attend event for the players. We had close to 130 teams register, but we can only squeeze in 86, because we don't want to limit the time of the games and take away from those who are participating," says Rose. 

They have over 100 directors across the country who work with softball leagues, where they track the teams and rank them to see who makes it into the tournament.

With over 3 million Canadians playing slow-pitch, it's a bit of a process.

Teams in this tournament have the opportunity to win rings and custom-designed warmup jerseys.

Playoffs will happen on Sunday and Monday.

People are able to attend the games for free, but there is roughly a $60 fee to compete.