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.

KUSC Women making their mark in Ottawa-Carleton

Last year, Bob Machin moved his top-level Kingston women's team from the Ontario Women's Soccer League (OWSL) to the Ottawa-Carleton Soccer League (OCSL) into the premier division, where they finished in third place behind the Falcons Fury and Gloucester, twelve points off the pace of the two leading teams.

After an off-season requiring replacements of almost half of the team's players, the team is ready to compete for the OCSL Women's Premier title in 2014.

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.

KUSC Women's Premier team to play Kean University

Media Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KUSC Women's Premier team to play Kean University

The KUSC Women's Premier team playing in the Ottawa Carleton Soccer League will be facing New Jersey's Kean University Cougars on Friday, August 9 at 6pm at the John Machin International Fields.

FISU Kazan: Jackie Tessier in Poland, part 2

Jackie Tessier continues her travels overseas preparing for the FISU games in Kazan with a few more days spent in Poland and another game under the belts of the women's soccer team, this time against one of the top women's teams.

Read on for the second entry of Jackie's diary,  a special Canada Day edition, as the Confederations Cup wraps up in South America!

FISU Kazan: Jackie Tessier in Poland

The FISU Universiade games begin in Kazan, Russia at the start of next week. Ex-Queen's varsity striker and current KUSC OCSL Women's player Jackie Tessier is playing with the women's soccer team and has agreed to send in updates every few days, discussing her travels and experiences representing Canada on the international stage.

The Queen's Journal profiled her in this week's issue as a lead-up to her trip overseas.

Read on for her first blog entry.

KUSC Women's Premier to play in the OCSL

It would not be unfair to say that Bob Machin has been around the game of soccer his entire life. His father was one of the founders of the Kingston United Soccer Club (a men's club) in the late 1940s and his brother John was instrumental in the founding of the Pittsburgh Township Soccer Club. As such, it is extremely fitting that Bob finds himself belonging to the Kingston United Soccer Club (KUSC), a club formed in 2004 with the merger of the Kingston Youth Soccer Club and the Pittsburgh Township Soccer Club.

In 2009, Bob Machin, along with Aldo Popazzi and Dimitri Senis, formed the Kingston FC women's team as part of the Kingston Women's Soccer Club (KWSC) to be entered in the Ontario Women's Soccer League (OWSL). That year, they won the East Regional division.