Baseball Nova Scotia recruiting amateur sport officiants

The reality is, Roberts says, youth baseball can’t happen in Nova Scotia without officiants, where 70 per cent of umpires are under the age of 20.

CITYnews halifax \ Stephen Wentzell

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From football games in empty stadiums to postponing the 2020 Olympics, the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted sports in an unprecedented way.

But the pandemic hasn’t just changed sports for the big leagues—it’s affected kids sports too. Not only have school sports been forced to adapt to public health guidelines, the number of people officiating these sports has dropped drastically.

That’s according to Chris Roberts who sits on the board of Baseball Nova Scotia’s Umpires Division, who tells CityNews he’s “essentially missed two full years of introducing teenagers to amateur officiating.”

Roberts noted the number of certified baseball umpires in the province dropped from 535 umpires in 2019 to just 218 one year later, leaving just 40 per cent of certified umpires remaining in Nova Scotia. That number improved to 331 in 2021.

The reality is, Roberts says, youth baseball can’t happen in Nova Scotia without officiants, where 70 per cent of umpires are under the age of 20.

“I think a lot of parents don’t necessarily consider the amazing things that young people can be exposed to when they get involved in officiating sports,” Roberts said. He pointed out that amateur officiating is a good way for young people to make some extra money while developing valuable life skills like “teamwork, conflict resolution [and] communication.”

He also noted that any prospective officiants in the Halifax or Dartmouth area could work as many as five or six nights a week, bringing home between $40 to $50 per game.

It’s not just baseball lacking officials either, Roberts says, but also hockey, soccer and lacrosse where “we’ve missed out on hundreds of young people.”

With restrictions lifted and no state of emergency in sight for the summer months, Roberts is eager to get back to a normal game of baseball.