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.

Outdoor Season is almost upon us... (Updated)

As the snow begins to melt and the grass (and turf) underneath begins to become visible and obvious, outdoor seasons are and tournaments are starting to warm up the turf in the Kingston area.

This past weekend, one of the last indoor tournaments took place, the Queen's High School indoor invitational, out at the Kingston 1000 Islands Sportsplex in Westbrook.

On the boys side, St. Pius X from Ottawa repeated as the boys champions with a 2-0 victory over Cornwall's St. Joseph's. Eight teams started pool play with St. Pius X and St. Joseph's finishing first in their respective divisions and a bye to the semi finals. St. Joseph's beat Belleville's Bayside 1-0 in the semis to advance to the final. St. Pius beat Pickering's Pine Ridge 2-0 in the semi finals on their way to the championship.

The girls side saw another repeat champion, also from Ottawa, as St. Francis Xavier HS won in a thrilling 1-0 overtime victory over Alliston's Banting Memorial. Thirteen teams started pool play with St. Francis Xavier, Banting Memorial and Whitby's Donald A Wilson capturing their respective divisions. Banting Memorial reached the final with a 1-0 quarter final victory over Smiths Falls, and a 1-0 semi final victory over Donald Wilson. St. Francis Xavier beat Bayside 3-1 in the quarter finals, and Pine Ridge 4-0 in the semi finals on their way to capturing the title.

A change to the GKSSA friendlies vs Kingston FC

Late last week, soon before the scheduled friendlies between GKSSA teams and Kingston FC's squad, a notification was sent to most of the clubs in the Kingston area from SOSA (the local district), forwarding along an email from Bruce Henderson at the OSA, suggesting that moving forward with these games was not recommended.

GKSSA teams playing friendlies against Kingston FC

This coming Saturday, the GKSSA's A Division winning team, Soccer Plus FC, will be facing off again a squad of players from Kingston FC's lineup in a pre-season exhibition game, the first on Kingston FC's schedule.

A second game will follow next Friday against Portuguese Benfica, the 2012 Carmine Lanzo, Sr Cup and playoff winners.

GKSSA Playoff Finals

This week, the GKSSA men's league playoff finals were held, all three being played out at the new Barr Homes Soccerplex off of County Road 6, just west of Amherstview.

The C Division final was contested by the top two teams in the division, the JKL Rangers and LCFC III Fanatics. LCFC III Fanatics came out on top of this game with a 3-0 result behind goals from Glenn Unan, Ryan Patterson, and Travis Merkley. Lorne Murphy recorded the clean sheet for the game as LCFC defeated the first place team in the division.

The B Division final was played the following night between RealtySource Red Bull and Ryatt United SC. Ryatt scored first on an own goal, but RealtySource was able to tie it up on the stroke of halftime on a goal from Jonathan Barbosa. The game went to extra time, and Nick Gregory scored with under two minutes left in the game to win the cup.