In 2001, Greg Hamilton, the director and head coach of Canada's amateur national teams, sought a way to improve his country's baseball program. Though Canada had produced a number of major league players, it had never been a powerhouse on the international baseball scene. Having never advanced to the playoff round of the Baseball World Cup or, up to that point, having never even finished in the top 10 in the Olympics, Hamilton knew something needed to be done. His solution was to improve the quality of competition for the country's best young players.

Hamilton, along with several executives from the Toronto Blue Jays -- including then-director of international scouting Tony Arias -- came up with a novel idea: to play a week's worth of games against high-level competition in the Dominican Republic.