Ottawa gets Frontier League baseball team for 2021
Will be independent league's third Canadian club
Ottawa's new baseball team will begin playing in the Frontier League as of 2021, the league announced Friday.
Ottawa will become the 15th team to join the league, which already includes two other Canadian clubs, the Quebec Capitales and the Trois-Rivieres Aigles, a news release from the league said.
The team will be operated by Sam Katz, owner of the Winnipeg Goldeyes and former mayor of Winnipeg, and the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, owners of the Ottawa 67s and the Ottawa Redblacks.
They jointly signed a 10-year lease for the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton baseball stadium earlier this week. Katz's Winnipeg team plays for a separate league, the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball.
The yet-to-be-named team replaces the Ottawa Champions, who were left out when their former league, the Can-Am League, merged with the Frontier League after the 2019 season.
Founded in 1993, the Frontier League describes itself as the longest-running independent professional baseball league. It claims to send more players to Major League Baseball than any other independent league.
Michel Laplante, president of the Capitales, said in the news release that the Frontier League's expansion to Ottawa may bode well for future Canadian clubs coming on board — including in Montreal.
