Victoria Seals Baseball Blog: GBL Releases Much Improved Schedule for 2010

The GBL released its schedule for the 2010 season yesterday and things are looking up for both the league and fans of the Victoria Seals. The league is expanding to 10 teams with the addition of clubs in Maui and Tijuana, and the St. George Roadrunners have been brought back from the brink of extinction with new owners.

The North Division will include the following teams in 2010:

Victoria Seals
Calgary Vipers
Edmonton Capitals
Chico Outlaws
St. George Roadrunners

The South Division will be comprised of the:

Na Ikaika Koa Maui ("The Strong Warriors of Maui")
Cimarrones de Tijuana ("Tijuana Untamed")
Orange County Flyers
Tucson Toros
Yuma Scorpions

Let's hope that there isn't a last-minute franchise pullout like there was last season, because right now the schedule looks fantastic. The season has been expanded to 90 games, so the Seals will play 45 home games at Royal Athletic. The Seals drew 93,691 fans in 40 home dates last season, so if the summer weather is decent the team will have no problem passing the 100,000-fan mark.

The home opener for the Seals is Friday May 21st against the fledgling Na Ikaika Koa Maui. The teams will play a 5-game series to kickoff the season, but that will be the only visit of the year by the Hawaiian expansion team.

Unlike last season, Victoria isn't stuck playing Edmonton and Calgary for over half of its schedule. The Capitals and Vipers only visit RAP seven times this season (as do the Chico Outlaws). Maui and Tijuana will play five times each in the Garden City. The Orange County Flyers and the Tucson Toros have four games scheduled in the Seals' ballpark, while Yuma and St. George will only play three games here.

Aside from opening night, potential highlights to the home schedule include a Canada Day game against Tijuana, Father's Day (June 20th) against the Capitals and the season finale on Labour Day (September 6th), which will also feature the Edmonton squad. Single-game tickets are not yet on sale, but they will eventually be available via Select Your Tickets.

Full details on yesterday's press release can be found here.

The entire home schedule is as follows: