Kamloops Northpaws

By Earl Seitz

Kamloops Northpaws

Kamloops’ new team in the West Coast Baseball League is the Northpaws

Sep 9, 2020 | 11:48 AM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops is getting a new team in the West Coast Baseball League.

The Kamloops Northpaws will be the league’s 14th franchise, joining the expansion Nanaimo Nightowls, Victoria Harbour Cats and Kelowna Falcons as the B.C. teams, along with teams from Washington and Oregon.

Over the last 20 years other leagues have tried to set up shop here, with grandiose plans, that never got to first base.

One thing that could see the Northpaws succeed, where others have failed, is a solid group of local ownership, with the pulse of the community.

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Norm Daley, Jon Pankuch and Neal Perry are the owners of the Northpaws —- businessman and entrepreneurs with a solid background in local sports.

The Northpaws will play a 54-game regular season from early June to early August —- 27 at home at Norbrock and 27 on the road —- with collegiate players, mostly from NCAA Division One teams.

On top of an undisclosed franchise fee, co-owner Norm Daley estimates the Northpaws will have an annual operating budget of between $700,000 and one million dollars.

To make it work, the Northpaws will need fans.

“We figure that we can probably make it at about 500 people,” says Daley. “We feel we can do much better than that.”

But the owners admit it will take more than just baseball —- a fan experience —- the total ambiance package of a night at the ballpark.

“To me the ball is secondary,” says co-owner Jon Pankuch. “The activities that we have going on for kids, and families — and place where they’re going to socialize. It’s a sport that allows the flexibility to be able to talk and enjoy the game, but not have to be engaged into the game all the time.”

“There are surveys that have been done,” says Norm Daley. “70% of fans who leave a minor league baseball game have no idea what the score was. My youngest son does not like sports. Doesn’t like watching them, doesn’t like doing anything. Want to go the (Vancouver) Canadians game, want to go to the (Seattle) Mariners game? ‘Yup, I’m in.'”

The team name is Northpaws —- the basic colours are primary solid black, red and white.

“The Northpaw — we like the name and it originally was a take on a righthhanded versus a southpaw (left-hander) and being a little play on a team north of the border that plays in a league primarily with United States teams,” says Jon Pankuch.

The next step for the Northpaws is hiring a general manager and a coach who can find the players and relate to the fans.

“This is probably going to be one of the harder parts of our job,” says co-owner Neal Perry. “We want to find a person that’s got maybe a little Major League Baseball experience, so that’s a draw for players. But also the collegiate recruiting, so that you know the players at the collegiate level. So we’ve got some work ahead of us. But now that we’ve done this, we’re not under the blanket anymore — we can be more aggressive and be out in the public’s eye and start recruiting.”