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Trottier gets Team Canada call

Tanis Trottier had no idea Softball Canada was forming a national women's slo-pitch team - not until she learned of her selection to the club. The 16-member team will swing the bats in the USA vs.
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Local slo-pitch player Tanis Trottier will suit up for Team Canada this summer. She'll represent her country at the USA vs. Canada Border Battle, June 29 to July 1 in Oklahoma City.

Tanis Trottier had no idea Softball Canada was forming a national women's slo-pitch team - not until she learned of her selection to the club.

The 16-member team will swing the bats in the USA vs. Canada Border Battle, June 29 to July 1 in Oklahoma City, Okla. As part of the Border Battle, Team Canada will play a series of exhibition games leading up to a one-game showdown against the U.S. on July 1.

The Border Battle is well-established in men's slo-pitch but this will be the first-ever women's event.

"I was a little dumbfounded at first - I was a little shocked, and then very, very humbled and proud," the 39-year-old Trottier said of her Team Canada appointment. "What an honour. It's the ultimate dream. And especially (being on) the inaugural team, it's a big deal. This is a big deal for female slo-pitch. It's becoming a very big sport - it has been for probably about the last decade."

Trottier, a sure-handed infielder who brings home-run power to the plate, has spent most of her life in Prince George. On the diamonds, she was a competitive fastball player until her early 20s, at which time she started playing slo-pitch as well. Once she got a taste of slo-pitch, it became her sport of choice.

"I enjoyed the slo-pitch game a little bit more for the action," Trottier said. "It's non-stop. With fastball, it's a little bit more strategic, where slo-pitch is just all-out 'smash the ball.' It's a last-man-standing type of game."

Trottier's slo-pitch career took off when she moved to Alberta in 2006. She became part of Calgary's thriving slo-pitch landscape, made a name for herself through her high level of play, and ended up becoming a mainstay on the women's provincial team.

"I played for Team Alberta every year I was there, won some championships with them, and really realized how big the scene is," said Trottier, who was named Softball Alberta's adult female slo-pitch player of the year in 2008. "It's huge - bat deals, sponsorships via different equipment manufacturers. There's even a professional league in the States."

Trottier moved back to Prince George in 2013 but has continued to play competitive slo-pitch. Last August, she was part of a B.C. women's team that slugged its way to national gold in Whitehorse. In the final, B.C. beat Alberta 27-21, which, of course, was a memorable experience for Trottier.

"It was pretty neat coming back to B.C. and doing it with B.C., for sure," said Trottier, a welding instructor and program coordinator at the College of New Caledonia.

"I think there were four home runs hit, a couple of them grand slams. It was an epic game - very exciting."

Trottier is still a member of Team B.C. and also plays for the Legends, a Vancouver-based co-ed traveling team that is exceptionally strong.

On Team Canada, Trottier is one of four players from B.C. The other three - Jackie Bates, Tina Gulbrandsen and Tonya Gulbrandsen - all hail from Langley. The Canadian roster includes five Alberta players, one from Manitoba and six from Ontario. The team leader, however, is Prince George product Ryan DeBelser, who now lives outside of Calgary, in Airdrie. Trottier didn't meet DeBelser until she made the move east. In Calgary, she actually played slo-pitch with DeBelser's wife, Carmen.

As for the Border Battle, Trottier expects an "unreal" Canadian team to give the Americans a tough test.

"It's so balanced," she said of Canada's roster, which has an average age of 30. "Honestly speaking, it probably doesn't have every great player there is because there are a lot of really underrated, great ball players and athletes, especially in this area. But, it has a really good piece of the creme de la creme of Canada's female slo-pitch players - power galore, speed galore and some defensive geniuses."