(Story & Photos by Marco Stoovelaar)
 Pools & Schedule announced for World Cup in Canada
Nederlands
 PLANT CITY, Florida (USA) -
The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), via the headquarters of the International Softball Federation in Florida, has announced the pool-alignments and playing schedule today (Thursday, March 5), for the 14th Men's Softbal World Championship, to be held June 26 through July 5 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada).
A total of 73 games will be played during the event which begans with a round robin of two pools, each consisting of eight teams.
The Netherlands Men Softball Team will play in Pool B.
Last year, the Dutch men squad qualified for the World Championship by capturing the bronze medal during the European Championship in the Czech Republic.
In Pool B, the Dutch Team meets Australia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, USA and Venezuela.
New Zealand, which captured the world championship-title in front of a home crowd in 2013, will start the event in Pool A.
In that group, the reigning champion will meet Argentina, Canada, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Guatemala, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The top-4 of each group will advance to the Play-Offs (page system).
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...European umpires are represented by...
...Galip Sonmez (left) and Pavel Vychodsky...
(© Photos: Marco Stoovelaar) |
The Netherlands opens the event on Friday, June 26 against Venezuela at 10 AM local time.
After the first six games of the event on Day 1 have been played, the Opening Ceremony will take place before the start of Game 7.
That will be played between host Canada and Guatemala, which will make its debut on a World Championship.
On Day 2 of the event, the Orange squad meets Australia at 2 PM, then will play a 10 AM game again the next day, facing European rival Denmark.
On the fourth day of the round robin, the Dutch squad meets the USA at 1 PM, then will play another morning game on Day 5 when it starts at 10 AM against Mexico.
In its sixth game, the Dutch Team meets the Dominican Republic (1 PM) and its closes the preliminary round on Thursday, July 2 against Japan, starting at 1 PM.
The Play-Offs then start on Friday, July 3.
The event closes on Sunday, July 5 with the bronze medal game and the grand final.
On February 25, Bob Stanton, the WBSC Softball Director of Umpires, appointed sixteen umpires from eleven countries to officiate in the World Championship in Canada.
Europe will be represented by Pavel Vychodsky from the Czech Republic and Galip Sonmez from Germany.
The other fourteen umpires are coming from Argentina (1), Australia (1), Canada (3), Japan (1), Mexico (1), New Zealand (2), Nicaragua (1), USA (3) and Venezuela (1).
(March 5)
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