Sarnia's minor baseball teams have adopted the name Brigade a year after the city's senior team did the same.
Teams within the Sarnia Minor Baseball Association were known as the Braves for the better part of 27 years. In 2021, the minor ball teams went by the Sarnia Baseball Club.
In a media release, the association said the Brigade name was chosen to honour the 1st Hussars, the Southwestern Ontario Armoured Reconnaissance Unit of the Canadian Army. The unit started as a mounted cavalry regiment in the late 1800s and was renamed the 1st Hussars in 1892.
The Brigade uniforms will retain the navy and red colours of the past, very similar to the senior Brigade team. A shoulder patch will commemorate the first Sarnia Braves team in 1956, and a second shoulder patch will honour Stan Slack, the founder of the minor Braves organization in 1995.
Sarnia's senior baseball team announced its name change in April 2021. It came after Baseball Ontario deemed the “Braves” moniker and logo as offensive and asked the club to make a change.
In July, Aamjiwnaang First Nation Chief Chris Plain told Sarnia News Today that there was never any discussion on the First Nation’s part to change the name. He added that a lot of people in the First Nation community didn’t find the Braves name very offensive.