Two in a row for Native Yankees

The Native Yankees won the Midnight Sun Tournament for the second year in a row with a 13-5 win over Just Call Vince.

Native Yankees captain Scott Kuptana said he's proud of his team's win. It came after a 11-10 loss to the same team earlier in the tournament.

"We won the tournament last year too, this is the first time we've won back-to-back," said Kuptana. "It felt great. I was a bit nervous at the end of that first game, because to take a loss like that, you get pretty low on yourself. But to win again, you never get tired of this feeling."

The tournament, which has been held in Inuvik for decades, took place over the August long weekend, August 3-6.

Six teams participated in this year's tournament.

Kuptana said the Native Yankees and Just Call Vince are evenly matched in terms of skill level.

"We beat them yesterday, and they went to the losers bracket, but came back up to face us again, and they had beat us twice in the elimination for the playoffs," he said. "I also just want to thank Just Call Vince for giving us a battle every time we play them. I don't think we've ever not had a good game against them."

The Native Yankees have been playing together for approximately 12 years.

"This is a team of guys that has been playing together since minor ball. We've been playing together for so long now that we're getting pretty good now!" said Kuptana. "I call them my summer family, because all summer we play baseball together, play in tournaments together. I see these people a lot!"

He added that the team's name comes from an idea his brother had.

"We couldn't come up with a team name at first, but then my brother said, 'Your favourite team has always been the Yankees, and we're just a bunch of Natives, so let's call ourselves the Native Yankees,'" he said. "It didn't seem like the greatest team name at first, but it stuck with us."

Kuptana said overall the tournament was great, but could not have been made possible without their sponsor, Harder Enterprise.

"It was a great weekend, there were a lot of balanced teams. Anyone could have taken it this weekend," he said. "We want to thank [Harder Enterprise], without them we couldn't have won, or even had the team in the tournament this weekend."