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Mr. Chuck Dorner has been involved in the game of Slo-Pitch Softball for more than 25 years as a player, coach and manager. From 1989-2000, 12 consecutive years, it was a Chuck Dorner coached team that represented Saskatchewan at Softball Canada’s Mens ‘A’ National Championships.
In 1992 and 1993, Chuck’s team, the Olympic Hurlers, won back to back SPN Mens A National titles. And in 1994 his team was runner up at the Softball Canada Mens A Nationals. In 1995, Chuck’s team, now called the Easton Hub City Sports, almost pulled off the National double play by capturing the SPN Mens ‘A’ title and just missing out on Softball Canada’s Men’s ‘A’ Championship, losing the Gold medal game to Ontario. To this day, no other coach but Chuck can lay claim to capturing 3 SPN Mens ‘A’ titles. This is quite a feat when you consider the fact that these teams came from a province with just over 1 million people.
In 1990 Chuck was asked to select and coach a Men’s All Star team from the Saskatoon Amateur Slo Pitch Associations Division One League to play an exhibition double header against the World Champion ‘Men of Steele’. The game was played at Cairns Baseball Field in Saskatoon in front of a crowd of 2300 people.
As a coach, Chuck’s commitment to excellence was conveyed to his playerswho bought in to the ‘sacrifices’ that had to be made and the long ‘road trips’ to find the kind of ‘competition’ needed to play against in order to improve their skills as individual players and as a team unit. During those successful years, some of Chuck’s players would travel 2-3 hours in to Saskatoon to practice with the team or play in a mid-week league game. After the game or practice, they’d hop back in their cars and drive back only to return again a day or two later for more practice or another game. Or other times the teamwould drive all the way to Calgary or down across the border into the states (either trip being a 6-7 hour jaunt) for 1 day to play in a ‘competitive’ tournament since there really wasn’t any competition for them in Saskatchewan.
Before retiring, Chuck worked in Saskatoon as a Senior Manager with Intercontinental Packers and Olympic Meats, which is now known as Mitchell’s
Gourmet Foods. Behind the slaughtering plant was some open barren land that the company owned. It was Chuck who was the driving force in putting up a backstop and setting up an infield for some ‘recreational’ play for staff members, but it was also used for his team to work on their defensive game. They even put a sign up on the backstop that read ‘Olympic Stadium’.
Chuck was nominated for induction into the Hall of Fame not just for his great success with the teams that he coached over the years in the SPN program, but also for his passion for the game itself. He continues to be an ‘active’ player and coach, playing and coaching the Saskatoon Silver Foxes 60+ team during the summer months and also maintaining a 150+ game schedule in the winter time playing in Arizona in 3 different 55+ leagues. Is that a passion for the game or what?
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