To most netball fans however, this is not surprising because the tournament has recently been dominated by both countries, with St. Kitts winning in 2009 and Grenada in 2010.

Both teams will meet on Wednesday night to determine the 2011 champions.

From all reports, the competition has been well supported with hundreds of fans turning out nightly for the matches. Organizers have also come in for high praises by the President of the St. Kitts & Nevis National Olympic Committee, Mr. Alphonso Bridgewater, who shared his opinion that the tournament provides a positive development for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, OECS.

Bridgewater told officials and fans at the opening exercises of the competition, that the tendency of our bigger brothers at CARICOM is to ask, “Why we need something at a sub-regional level…why are we trying to split up the region even further.”

“My attitude has always been that CARICOM is stronger by the very nature that the OECS is strong,” said the Olympic Committee President.

He said that within the OECS, we have many things that we could teach the bigger CARICOM countries. Our history has taught us that the stronger the OECS, the stronger is CARICOM.

Also commenting on the tournament was the Minister of Sport, for St. Kitts & Nevis, Glenn Phillip, who said that he hopes that at the end of the tournament, all teams would have played at their highest standards displaying sportsmanship and friendship.

Meanwhile, the OECS Sports Director, Dennis James, said that he believes that this tournament is a perfect opportunity to promote sports tourism.

“James urged the stakeholders to capitalize on the tournament. He said “We can think of all the benefits that can accrue from having a group of people visiting our shores. No matter how much we think we are spending, just think of each of the teams spending monies on food, hotel and other expenses and we would recognize the benefits. We need to embrace all these activities as sports tourism.”