Sports Growing From The Bottom Up In Plum Coulee

More and more children are getting involved in local sports in the Town of Plum Coulee, much to the delight of the local sports committee.

"It all started three years ago with a baseball program. It started off quite small. Then we launched into soccer in the fall and we run a gymnastics program in the winter, in conjunction with Plum Coulee school," said Plum Coulee Sports Committee Member Jeremy Thiessen.

He explained it initially was started with the Grand Slam and Rally Cap baseball programs, which has grown over the years to now include a U11 and U13 competitive baseball team.

Thiessen is thrilled to see this growth and attributed it to the young population of the community. He added Plum Coulee has a strong heritage of sports and if you were to talk to the middle to older generation they'll tell you all about the Express hockey team, Pirates senior baseball team's over the years, or the other rich sports history the community has.

In addition to the rich sports history and young population, Thiessen stated it's the committee's goal to provide an affordable option for the children of Plum Coulee to be active and to have fun playing organized sports. He went on to say registration for all of their baseball programs is $50 or less.

With any increase or growth in sport comes the need for more volunteers. The need for more umpires, more coaches, more people to maintain and prepare the playing surfaces for each game.

"We would like to see more volunteers join our committee to help with the administrative stuff. The organization and administration level," said Thiessen. "Currently it's myself and Zach Worms who do all of that for all of the programs."

As the programs continue to grow, the need for more coaches are there and Thiessen stated this year they were lucky enough to fill all of the positions they needed.

The sports committee is looking into the possibility of offering a secondary winter program for the children to participate in. With the Plum Coulee Arena repairs/renovations being completed the group is weighing the options of starting a grassroots hockey program.