The only question is just what everything will look like when they host the Medicine Hat Mavericks at Ross Wells Park on Friday, May 28.
The league is currently planning a 56-game season running from May 27 through Aug. 6, and as one might imagine with such a compact schedule through a little over two months, there will be a lot of baseball played with very little time off -- one day off a week is pretty much the norm, and 10-game stretches aren’t unusual.
But that’s just how it is when it comes to a summer league designed to give players as much baseball as possible during their off-season. The important thing is when those games are, and for the Miller Express, it works out pretty well that way.
“When you try and cram 50-some games into 60-some days, you have to take the good with the bad and it all balances out,” said Express general manager Cory Olafson. “Our key dates are Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights for the best crowds and that seems to balance out this year… I think the highlight of this year’s schedule is we’re hosting the Canada Day game against Regina, it’s all part of a three-game weekend and we’re hosting Regina two of those days, so that’ll be a pretty cool date to have.”
The WCBL will have a different look this season, as the Yorkton Cardinals and Melville Millionaires will have their leave-of-absence planned for last season moved over to the 2021 campaign.
As a result, the Miller Express will take the field in the Eastern Conference alongside the Regina Red Sox, Weyburn Beavers, Swift Current 57’s and Medicine Hat Mavericks, who will move over from the Western Conference for the coming campaign.
Rather than the three- and four-game series seen last season, the majority of the Express campaign will be single- and two-game sets, with a handful of home-and-homes thrown in for good measure.
The Express will have a six-game homestand from June 10 through June 16, and they’ll play 12 of 14 away from Ross Wells Park from July 11 through July 27. That might seem like a long trip, but it’s not the worst -- the Edmonton Prospects will play their entire season in barnstorming fashion on the road as their new stadium is built.
The league will also welcome an expansion franchise in the Sylvan Lake Gulls, who will host the Express July 22-23, but won’t make a trip to Moose Jaw this season.
The regular season will come to an end on Aug. 5 as the Express host Regina; the best-of-three conference semifinals run Aug. 8-10, the conference finals run Aug. 11-13 and the league championship series, also best-of-three, begins Aug. 15.
While there are still a lot of questions with how things will look because of the pandemic, the Express are in good shape personnel-wise.
“Right now, we have almost a full roster,” Olafson said. “A lot of the guys we had coming in last year will be hold-overs, and because the American colleges, the seniors were allowed to come back and play a fifth year because of COVID, so it’s created a logjam in the collegiate system down there.
“So we had a lot of kids who had committed here last year that are still good to play this year and our roster looks very good right now. It’s just a matter of having games to utilize that roster with now.”
You can click right here for a look at the full Miller Express schedule.
