The Frontier League made a number of changes to its 2021 season schedule, including changing Gateway’s May 27 home opener opponent from Florence to the league’s new team from Quebec.

by Cedric Williams
Senior Editor

With the season set to begin a little more than a month from now, the Frontier League announced Tuesday morning that due to the uncertainty of when the US-Canada border would be re-opened, the league would have to make a number of adjustments to the 2021 season schedule.

The three teams from Canada will not be able to play in the league as themselves this season. The two expansion teams, the Ottawa Titans and the Trois-Rivieres Aigles will not field teams at all in 2021, and the team from Quebec City, instead of playing as it planned, will now be a team made up of Canadian players and players already under contract from those three teams. That team will be known as the Province of Quebec and will play all its games on the road this year, unless the border re-opens at some point this summer.

“After having to suspend our 2020 season, we were excited to play 2021 with our full 16 teams and to bring the tremendous market of Ottawa into the Frontier League,” deputy commissioner Steve Tahsler said in a statement released by the league office. “Unfortunately, the continued and understandable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are causing us to change our plans. Our three Canadian members have proven to be tremendous additions and great partners. We look forward to resuming a full league schedule in 2022.”

The league made it a point to note that none of the three teams are folding. The teams from Ottawa and Trois-Rivieres are simply sitting out the 2021 season and the team Quebec City will change its name and play as the Province of Quebec for this one season, and all three teams will be back and play as themselves in 2022.

“With the continued closure of the U.S/Canada border and the uncertainty of when it will reopen, the Ottawa Titans in conjunction with the Frontier League have agreed to make 2022 our inaugural season,” Ottawa vice-president Regan Katz said. “This was not an easy decision, but we believe it is the right decision. We thank our staff, players, coaches, and manager for their commitment to the Ottawa Titans and look forward to seeing them on our field next May.

“Special thanks to our fans, ticket holders and our corporate sponsors for their tremendous support. We look forward to seeing you all in 2022. We wish the Province of Quebec team good luck in 2021 and wish them the best in dealing with the challenges of being a road team. The Ottawa Titans will immediately shift focus to getting through this pandemic and preparing for the 2022 season.”

The Province of Quebec team has been asked to decide which players it plans to keep by Wednesday evening so that the remaining players can be placed into a dispersal draft among the 13 US-based teams that will be conducted on Thursday afternoon.

“It is a situation completely out of our control”, Trois-Rivieres president Rene Martin said. “We cannot wait to play in the Frontier League in 2022. One of our main goals was to present professional baseball in Trois-Rivieres and Quebec this summer, and should the border reopen that option remains. There is no perfect solution, but the possibility of maybe presenting some professional baseball while preparing for 2022 is the best scenario for us.”

Now along with the unexpected draft of new players coming on Thursday, the elimination of two teams and forming of a new third team will affect the Gateway Grizzlies in a number of ways, specifically in its game schedule for 2021. Gateway was supposed to open the new campaign on Thursday, May 27, with a home game against the Florence Y’alls.

That has been changed.

The Grizzlies will still play their home opener on May 27. But instead of playing it against Florence, Gateway will open the season at GCS Credit Union Ballpark against the new Province of Quebec team.

Gateway will play two games against Province of Quebec, then go on its first scheduled road trip to play the Schaumburg Boomers. Following that series is when the schedule changes really kick in for the Grizzlies.

They were originally supposed to play another road series against the Evansville Otters, but now the Grizzlies will come home and play one of its longest homestands of the season. Gateway will be home for nine straight days and will play series against three different teams.

First, the Grizzlies will host two games against the Windy City ThunderBolts (June 2-3), then they’ll play three games against Florence (June 4-6), before taking a day off (June 7), and then concluding the homestand with three games against the Lake Erie Crushers (June 8-10).

The next series after that will be a weekend trip to Windy City (June 11-13). That series will stay as scheduled, except on that final day (June 13), instead of playing just one game, the Grizzlies and ThunderBolts will now be a doubleheader.

After that, the rest of Gateway’s 2021 schedule will remain as planned.

“We are trying to make the best of the situation,” Quebec president Michel LaPlante said. “We feel the full scenario that we will present over the next few days will fill up the maximum potential of the circumstances. Our fellow teams have been great partners and we have had tremendous support from our government and city. We will have something interesting to announce soon.”