The countdown is on to the first Dustball tournament in three years.

Dustball will take place July 7-10 in Whitehorse.

Softball Yukon executive director George Arcand is looking forward to the tourney.

"It looks OK. We're gonna have 48 teams, which is down from 2019, but we're back to a near-normal, so it'll be a good tournament," he said.

Arcand figured there were 68 to 70 teams in the 2019 tournament.

He explained the format of this year's tournament.

"They play their seeding round and then they go into a double-knockout playoff ... based on their seeding round. So if they win them both, they could conceivably be in A (Division), depending on whether they're playing men's or not – Co-ed's got four divisions and Men's has only got three – so depending on what they do in the seeding round will ultimately determine where they're going to end up in the double knockout."

There are eight divisions in total this year. In addition to four co-ed and three men's divisions, there is one women's division.

Asked how it feels to finally be holding the tournament again, Arcand responded, "We missed '20 and '21, so it feels good. We're back to near-normal conditions. There's always ... COVID out there, but it seems to be a bad flu now, so it's all good.

"As long as people are aware, keep some good habits they learned during COVID, then we'll be good."

Arcand said it also means a lot to the softball community.

"It's huge. Obviously most of our (teams) are playing in it, so it's good. We've got six teams from Alaska, so it's nice to see them coming back."

There are five teams from Juneau coming, and one from Skagway.

Regarding favourites going into the tournament, Arcand said, "I honestly have no idea. You never know with Dustball because what you think is a league team has gone out and beefed it up and ... two teams make up one ... I'll be able to tell you more after the first day."

As for prizes, the winner in each of the eight divisions receive jackets and a plaque. The second-place teams gets a plaque and a piece of SPN (Slo-Pitch National) clothing.

Arcand added, "It looks like it's going to be a pretty dry weekend, which is not like the last one, so that's nice.

Unfortunately we're gonna have a lot of smoke and that's the Yukon getting good weather.

"The weather looks good. It would be nice to have the whole four days in sunshine, so lookin' forward to that."