Queen's Men's Soccer Coach hunt still on...? (Updated)

It's less than a week away from OUA training camps opening, including the Queen's camps here in Kingston. And yet the Queen's men's soccer team seems no closer to having a head coach in place.

Chris Gencarelli stepped down at the start of June after four years in charge of the team. During his tenure, he won the OUA East Coach of the Year in 2012, the year he led the squad to a first place finish in their division with an 11-1-2 record.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Queen's West Campus noise exemption request (Updated)

Over the last several months, there has been an ongoing issues with local Kingston residents near the Queen's West Campus turf field, located out near Richardson Stadium (corner of Sir John A MacDonald Blvd and Johnson St).

This Tuesday (March 4), Kingston City Council (as part of their agenda) will be receiving a recommendation from City staff as to how an exemption for the noise by-law should be applied to the field.

Local talent tagged for TAG

The Ontario Soccer Association and the Referee Development Department announced the leaders for the newly formed Technical Advisory Group (TAG) today. This group is designed to replace the current Instructors and Assessors Advisory Groups for referee development in the province with an eye toward creating more inclusivity and succession planning.

The main goal of this new group was to be a counterpart to the OSA's Technical Advisory Committee, which advises the board of directors on all matters soccer related, but seems to concentrate more on the player and coach development stream.

Bill Orme

Bill and Eden Orme
(courtesy KLBC)

I'm taking today to do something a bit atypical for this blog, specifically to honour my first ever soccer coach, Bill Orme.

When I first began playing "organized" soccer with the Kingston Youth Soccer Association back in the day, I often played at the McCullough Park fields here in Kingston, which was fairly close to home. My best friend and neighbour Mark Staveley was playing and his dad, Howard Staveley, was one of the two coaches, along with a co-worker of his, Bill Orme. Bill's two sons also played for the team, Will and Steve (and even though Steve was a year or two younger than the rest of us, he definitely wasn't out of place on our motley crew).

As is often the case with youth house league teams, most people were played in positions they disliked horribly (I was played as an outside left striker in modern parlance) and there were one or two great players on the team (I was not one of them), Bill and Howard managed to instill a love of the game in me at a young age, something I'm certain that both of them since regretted!

CSL: Kingston FC - 2014 Kickoff

Yesterday afternoon, Kingston FC held their 2014 Launch Press Conference at the Queen's ARC in the Alumni Lounge.

The team made several announcements about their upcoming 2014 season, some new ownership interests, a new partnership with Queen's University, and some player news.

They also unveiled their new logo (seen here), a new update done by a Toronto based graphic designer, Jennifer Coghill.

During their discussions, they talked about their objectives for 2014 (and beyond), and what the new governance situation with the Canadian Soccer League (CSL) means for them moving forward.

Dome construction... two now? More?

The Westbrook Dome group put out a press release this past Thursday afternoon stating that construction on their dome has begun anew. This is the dome project taking place at the Westbrook Golf Club on Westbrook Road off of Highway 2 a few kilometres east of Odessa.

A second dome project is in the works in Loyalist Township near the intersection of Taylor-Kidd Boulevard and County Road 6 (a few kilometres south of Odessa).

Dome news! But not where you expected...

EMC Kingston published a story at the end of last week discussing the new dome going up in the Kingston area that will be ready to go by October 1.

Of course, the twist to the story is that this dome will be near Amherstview (corner of Taylor-Kidd Boulevard and Wilton Road, near the GKSSA's Barr Homes Soccerplex) rather than at Westbrook.

The dome will be 300 feet by 200 feet and stand 60 feet tall and located in the Loyalist East Business Park, costing close to 3.2 million dollars all told.

Kingston FC schedule released, first game this Sunday!

Kingston FC held a press conference at Richardson Stadium on the Queen's West Campus this afternoon where they announced their schedule for the season in the Canadian Soccer League. Co-owner and president, Joe Scanlon stated that the team was aiming for a top three finish, while fellow co-owner and chairman Lorne Abugov corrected him, suggesting that they were aiming for a top-two spot.

Kingston FC opens their season this Sunday, May 5 with a home game against Brampton City United, with the first division team kicking off at 1pm and the reserve game kicking off at 3:15pm at the West Campus turf field.

CSL sanctioned for 2013, Kingston FC season back on track

Last night, Apr 23, the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC) officially released a pair of decisions that applied to the conflict between the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) and the Canadian Soccer League (CSL).

The very short summary of the decision is that the de-sanctioning of the CSL by the CSA for 2013 was delayed until February 13, 2014 rather than going into effect this year. As such, the CSL will be allowed to operate with CSA sanctioning for the 2013 season.

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.

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.

Queen's Journal profile

Earlier this week, I was approached by the Queen's Journal about being interviewed for a feature in their final full edition of the year. I spoke with their sports editor Peter Morrow over lunch at the Mansion earlier this week. Their story was released today, both in print and online.

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.

Jackie Tessier trying out for FISU's Team Canada (Updated)

The 2013 FISU Summer Universiade takes place this July 6th through 17th in the city of Kazan, in the Republic of Tararstan, part of the Russian Federation. One of Kingston's top female soccer players is hoping to be part of the women's team that Canada is sending and headed off today for the final round of tryouts.

Jackie Tessier, fresh off her fourth season with the Queen's Golden Gaels, and a third national medal in a row, left today for Burnaby, BC for a chance to make the final roster of twenty players that will be heading to the games this summer. She is following in the footsteps of Brienna Shaw and Riley Filion who played with the women's team in Harbin, China in 2011.