Dupre ball diamond now named Ray Kahanyshyn Field

One of Dupre’s long standing community members got a pat on the back on Thursday night.

The main ball diamond is now Ray Kahanyshyn Field after the original player who helped form the team decades ago.

The current group that forms the Dupre club honoured him with a brief ceremony and showed off the sign before beginning a slo-pitch game against Franchere.

“I was honoured. Dupre is our home,” Kahanyshyn told Lakeland Connect, whose land is just on either side of the diamond. 

As the old-timers have aged out, the newcomers have come in and treated these veterans with a lot of grace, treating them teammates as they come out to watch the once a week games in their current league.

Thursday night kicked off the start of the final tournament. Although Dupre lost to Franchere in that game, they bounced back in the rematch in the final to claim the tournament win.

“Everybody seems to love the community. They come together. Everybody works. You see what they’ve done here. We’re treated good. We’re the original team members. Pete, me, Ron Fox, we ran the team for years,” said Kahanyshyn

“But we’re getting older and these guys got of age and took over and they treated us really good, like teammates. They looked up to us I would say.” 

Spanning the years playing the windmill circuit in tournaments, to the modified pitch, now it’s slo-pitch rules, with wooden bats.

This makes the game quicker and with very few home runs.

Dupre is located northwest of Bonnyville.