Ocean City is filled with famous restaurants, mini-golf and 10 miles of Atlantic Ocean shoreline, which makes it all the more attractive when bringing amateur and youth events to the area’s largest and most popular park facility, Northside Park.
Full of family fun, the Atlantic Ocean and tourist attractions for all ages, Ocean City has more than just the boardwalk and the beach. Northside Park is Ocean City’s largest and most popular park facility in the area. It is comprised of 58 acres of amenities ranging from multi-sport fields, softball/baseball fields, a fishing lagoon and more.
Not only does Northside Park offer outdoor amenities, there is also an idoor 14,200 square foot community center as well as a 21,000 square foot sports annex with a multi-sports arena. Major events have happened and continue to come back to Northside Park, such as many Aloha Tournaments lacrosse events, the Ocean City Lacrosse Classic, St. Patrick’s Day indoor soccer tournaments in the indoor facility and more.
The Mid-Atlantic Amateur Sports Alliance (MAASA), partners Ocean City, Worcester County and Wicomico County, Ocean City’s neighbors, to work together to create some of the best sporting events across the state. Leveraging all three areas, MAASA makes it possible to use more than one facility in one place. For example, the ISSA Eastern Shore Championships is a popular baseball tournament in the area, using Northside Park as well as Henry S. Park Athletic Complex in Wicomico County to maximize the number of teams registered while having more options for fields within a convenient location.
“It has been wonderful to watch the growth of Northside Park over the years. From the opening of the Recreation Center in October of 1984 to today, Northside Park has seen the addition of ballfields, pathways, playgrounds, exercise areas, food and water-sport concessions, as well as a 27,734 square foot building expansion, Little Lending Library and more,” stated Susan Petito, Director of Recreation and Parks for Ocean City. “The Town recognized long ago that, for a resort town, offering tournament and opportunities and events would attract visitors to Ocean City and expand tourism. The Recreation and Parks Department has been bringing sports tournaments to town for 30 years, among them its home-grown St. Patrick’s Soccer Tournament, growing from a single weekend in March to its now four full consecutive weekends of soccer play. Trip Advisor has Northside Park ranked as the second most popular amenity in Ocean City, second 
only to the beach, and the number of people who can be found walking their dogs, jogging or walking the park, fishing and crabbing on the piers, playing on the playground, or simply enjoying the beauty of the bay views is something that could’ve never been imagined at the park’s inception. Though Northside Park is no longer a ‘secret paradise,’ our residents are still incredibly important to us, and providing community programming and contributing to Ocean City being a livable community is still key to our mission. I truly believe that there is no better place to work or play than Northside Park, and our goal is to always assure that our residents and visitors are able to “Discover an Ocean of Fun.'”
To learn more about Northside Park, please visit Ocean City Recreation and Parks’ website for more information.
