Hawks Dream Field holds grand opening four years in the making

There’s an old saying: “If you build it, they will come.”

The proof was in the pudding on Sunday, as crowds came to the grand opening of the new Hawks Dream Field in Dominion, N.S.

The day’s festivities started off with a parade through town to the ballfield, then featured a performance by the Men of the Deeps.

Hundreds came for their first look at the state-of-the-art new diamond, which took nearly four years and $3.5 million to complete.

"It just looks really nice, and the wait all these years is finally worth it,” said Makaio Edwards, a 13-year-old Challenger baseball player who is also featured in a new music video celebrating the Dream Field project’s success.

Edwards is a prime example of the Dream Field's mission.

He lives with autism, and looks forward to playing on the fully-accessible field.

"Anyone can play,” Edwards said. “Regardless of what you've been through or your ability, anyone can really. Baseball is for everyone."

Little League players who were on-hand were pretty much unanimous about their favourite feature of the new ballpark: the turf infield.

That turf was made possible in part by a $180,000 donation from the Jays Care Foundation.

On Sunday, Blue Jays paraphernalia was nearly as numerous as blades of grass.

"We believe we are Canada's team,” said Andy Lee of the Jays Care Foundation. “So seeing the Blue Jays out here on the East Coast -- I mean we've seen them on the West Coast, so we really feel like it's coast to coast to coast and we're very happy about that."

For the people behind the project, Sunday meant finally crossing home plate after years of fundraising and lobbying all three levels of government.

The biggest curveball, of course, was the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We were in the middle of the pandemic, so that was one of the biggest hurdles that we had to jump, of course, but we did it."

"I had somewhat of a vision of what it would look like, but never did I imagine it would come out as well as it did,” said Darren Bruckschwaiger, CBRM councillor for the area.

Prior to all the refurbishments, the field hadn't been played on much in recent years.

So will it be used enough to justify all the time, effort and money that went into it?

"I'm sure it will be,” Bruckschwaiger said. “They're going to come from everywhere here. Build it and they will come, as they say. This is a field of dreams, and I think you're going to see a lot of activity here."