Photo: dreamstime.com

By Shane Clausing

The Off-Season Practice Facility

Long-time resident bringing indoor batting cage facility to Grande Prairie

Dec 3, 2021 | 5:00 AM

A Grande Prairie resident is turning his dream into a reality.

Long-time resident Nick Darke is building an indoor batting cage facility in the Swan City.

The new facility will be called ‘The Off-Season Practice Facility’. The goal of the new facility is to give baseball players an opportunity to grow their craft during the winter months.

Darke tells EverythingGP, he got the idea to create The Off-Season as he realized there were few places to go for baseball players to practice in the winter.

“The Off-Season Practice Facility is kind of been an idea I’ve had over the past couple of years. I’ve been playing competitive slo-pitch for six or seven years and I have my son playing t-ball, so I’m very big in the ball community,” he explained.

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“There will be four cages. You can rent out the whole facility for camps, clinics, groups, stuff like that. It is going to have pitching machines for fastpitch, hardball, and slo-pitch. It will have pitching mounds and radar, pretty much anything you need to get a good offseason worth of training in as a ball player.”

While baseball will be the main focus of the facility, Darke says he also wants it to become a place where athletes of other summer sports can come and train.

“We’d like to offer it up to anyone else who would like to kick a soccer ball around or throw some lacrosse balls with a friend, anything like that, you can take advantage of the turf itself. If you are able to use your sport properly with some open space, then we would like to have everyone out.”

The Off-Season Practice Facility will be located at 103A – 8930 111 Street and is anticipated to open sometime in January 2022.

Once the new facility is open, Darke mentioned they have plans to open a concession and add additional features for guests to enjoy.

Darke said so far, people around the baseball community and Grande Prairie are excited for a facility like this to come to town.

“I’ve been a little bit overwhelmed over the last month to see the interest and how excited everybody is about it. Everyone can’t believe nobody has ever done this before and we have never had the opportunity to have indoor batting cages,” he explained.

“Our winters are eight months of the year and as a hardball, fastpitch, slo-pitch or baseball player, they don’t get enough time to enjoy the sport that they love. Being able to offer them a facility that is year-round is massive for them.”

Darke feels The Off-Season Practice Facility will be a big hit around Grande Prairie given the size of the baseball community in the area.

Updates will continue to be provided about the facility’s progress on their Facebook page.