Moose Jaw Girls Minor Fastball is back in action after being forced to delay the start of their season due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The teams have been practicing for months now but were not able to play any games until public health guidelines changed on May 30. Previously scheduled to begin in Step 2 of Saskatchewan's Re-Opening Roadmap, gameplay was bumped ahead to Step 1 in an announcement last Tuesday, May 25. Shawn Okerstrom, league commissioner says the news was a welcome shock.

"It was quite the surprise...relief too, I guess. We were hoping that it would get bumped ahead like it did but it was announced a little later than we had thought."

Okerstrom says the challenge now comes with scheduling a whole season in a matter of days. Despite getting a late start, the league didn't want to extend play too deep into July for fear that some players would back out.

"Everything is lined up now but we're compressing the season into five weeks. It's a lot of games to fit in but we're going to play a few Fridays and Saturdays in the first few weeks to keep up. We asked our members about it and had overwhelming support to do it."

According to Okerstom, the players are excited to get back to regular action. Families too are excited to start attending games, but there are still some questions as to just how many fans can be in the bleachers.

"There's a lot of grey areas in the 150 limit. The rules talk about "facilities and complexes" instead of diamonds or parks. So we're trying to figure out how to do groupings of diamonds that share one gate. With multiple diamonds at Optimist Park that share one gate, we're hoping that we can have 150 people at each one."

Now well into their first week of play, things feel like they are starting to return to normal.