L1O: Kingston Clippers schedule announced (Updated)

Earlier this morning, the League1 Ontario schedule was announced. The Kingston Clippers will be playing 22 games this year, eleven at home, eleven away, beginning May 2nd in King City and wrapping up September 26th in Toronto.

Their home opener takes place on May 9th at 2pm at Queen's West campus field, Miklas-McCarney, in Kingston, but the majority of their home games will be played at Tindall Field on the main Queen's campus.

The full schedule for the Kingston Clippers can be found below.

A successful "mega-club"?

On another of my tangential, non-news postings, earlier this week, a friend of mine pointed out a recent excellent article on SoccerAmerica asking if there was a place for small clubs in the USA. As a quick summary, that article states that, yes there is a place, but at a certain point, those clubs will need to either combine or affiliate with another club to ensure the proper levels of development and standards.

As anything related to soccer here in Canada often does, this led to a discussion about how it could, would, and should apply up here in the so-called "frozen north". The big issues that arose were specifically that there are different levels of services expected between smaller and larger clubs and that the political and economic reasons for larger clubs tend to be outweighed by their lack of developmental benefits. Typically, the larger a club, the more inefficient it is and the oversight and accountability becomes more difficult to manage, much like we often see here in Ontario with the OSA↣District↣Club chain.

Weekend Roundup - June 7/8

This past weekend, the League1 Ontario Cataraqui Clippers held their home opener down at the St. Lawrence College field on Saturday with a 5pm kickoff. The Clippers' OYSL team continued their fight in the U17 division. Kingston FC played a pair of games out of town split between Milton and North York. And finally, the Kingston United women play up in Ottawa this evening.

L1O: Cataraqui Clippers league schedule announced

This morning, the Ontario Soccer Association officially released the League1 Ontario full league schedule, including the games to be played by the Cataraqui Clippers.

As mentioned previously, the Clippers will be opening their 2014 season at the OSA's Soccer Centre in Vaughan on May 31st against Masters FA with an 11am kickoff.

The Clippers will host the Toronto FC Academy the following weekend at home on Saturday, June 7th at 5pm at the main St. Lawrence College field.

L1O: Cataraqui Clippers League1 Ontario press conference

This afternoon, the Cataraqui Clippers held a press conference at the Ambassador Hotel in Kingston, along with Ron Smale, the president of the Ontario Soccer Association, and Dino Rossi, League1 Ontario chairman and OSA board member.

The conference was used to make a formal announcement to the Kingston (and area) media and to show off some of the players that will be playing with their League1 Ontario team this summer.

Queen's Boys 2014 Spring Invitational

This past weekend, the Queen's Men's Soccer team hosted their annual Spring Invitational tournament for U17 and U18 boys teams at Tindall Field on the main Queen's campus.

Twelve teams from across Ontario competed at this year's tournament, with eight in the U17 division, including two from Kingston, and four in the U18 division.

The Cataraqui Clippers U17 OYSL team and a Kingston United U17 team competed in Group 2 of the U17 competition, and the Clippers represented themselves very well on the day, despite being short on player numbers.

League1 Ontario announced, Cataraqui Clippers playing

This afternoon, the Ontario Soccer Association officially unveiled their League1 Ontario (L1O) competition beginning this summer, and here in Kingston, it was revealed that the Cataraqui Clippers were one of the ten inaugural teams taking part, playing as the Kingston Cataraqui Clippers.

The official announcement and presentation took place this afternoon at the OSA's Soccer Centre in Vaughan, Ontario and was attended by the Cataraqui Clippers' technical director Chris Eveleigh and former Kingston FC player, Jason Massie.

Weekend Roundup - Sept 1/2

With the opening weekend of the university seasons now underway, it was fitting that the Queen's University Gaels would face off against their cross-town rivals RMC Paladins to start things off.

Over the last few years, the RMC teams have been weaker than Queen's, primarily due to recruiting and admission requirements at RMC, but this weekend's games really showed that gap. The games were both played Sunday afternoon out at the new turf field at West Campus, which is now the home of Queen's soccer. The teams will play their entire home schedules there, but still practice twice a week on the Richardson grass fields.

CSL: Kingston Prospect FC playing

It was announced yesterday that later this month, Saturday September 24 at 7pm, the Prospect FC team (currently based out of Ottawa) in the CSL's reserve division will be playing a game against the TFC Academy II (the U17 Junior Academy squad, also playing in the CSL's reserve division) in Kingston.

The game will be hosted at Tindall Field on the Queen's University main campus, and will cost $10 per person.

According to the Whig-Standard article about the upcoming game, Nick Moren, a student at Frontenac Secondary School and a player in the Cataraqui Clippers youth club, will be playing with the team that night.