A blog about supporting local football (aka soccer) focusing on south eastern Ontario and the Kingston area, but wandering so far as to talk about Toronto and the Canadian national teams.
Yesterday afternoon, the RMC Paladins and Queen's Gaels teams played each other for the second time this season. Previously, Queen's took both games by a 1-0 score in the men's game and 3-1 in the women's. Both games were extremely close and were decided in the very late stages.
Thursday's games were both played out at RMC's campus just across the LaSalle Causeway over the Cataraqui River (a tributary of the Rideau Canal). Unfortunately, I was unable to attend either game, but got a quick summary of the game from one of the assistant coaches of the Queen's women's squad.
There was a lot of soccer being played in the Kingston area this weekend, starting off with the St. Lawrence College Vikings women's soccer team starting their season off against Loyalist College from Belleville on the Thursday evening. St. Lawrence and Loyalist College played to a hard fought 1-1 draw to begin the OCAA season.
With Sunday morning looking dreary and cool, I feared the worst for the afternoon. I was assigned as one of the assistants for the RMC women's game against the Ryerson Rams, the second time I'd seen Ryerson in two days.
I arrived in plenty of time at the RMC campus and talked with RMC's coach Chad Beaulieu and one of their assistants, Mark Stanley, for a bit before the rest of the team of referees arrived. We talked about their season to date and how even though they've had some trouble with injuries over the last couple of weeks, they were pleased with how the team has been handling the adversity.
The game was scheduled to be played on Navy Bay 4, which is just to the left upon entering the campus, one of six sports fields surrounding the campus entrance. The field was in fantastic shape, and very little wind was coming in off of the bay at the meeting of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario. With few clouds in the sky and a bright sun, it was almost natural that we would be wearing black uniforms for the game.
On Saturday afternoon, the Queen's University Gaels women's soccer team faced off against the Ryerson Rams at Richardson Stadium. The day was wet with a misty drizzle coming down all afternoon and a sense of mugginess in the air.
I was scheduled to be an assistant referee for this game, AR2 to be specific. The second AR inhabits the side of the field away from the benches, and is generally responsible for taking game notes and timing to assist the referee.
We wore a set of reds for the game, I'd just picked one up earlier in the week in a long sleeve. I figured that the long sleeve would be quite hot to wear, but it worked out quite well with the rain coming down, allowing me to keep some warmth despite the damp weather. Queen's came out wearing their gold jerseys as OUA teams have a policy of wearing their light colours in the first weekend game and their dark colours in the second game. To counter, Ryerson wore a nice royal blue set of uniforms.
Tonight was the first CSL related game played in Kingston, Ontario, a CSL Reserve Division game between the Prospect FC team and TFC Academy II, their U-17 squad. The game was played at Tindall Field on the Queen's University campus at 7pm.
I arrived about ten minutes before kickoff and ran into a few people I knew, including a fellow TFC supporter who is working for the Kingston Prospect team now. I paid my $10 entry fee, which is a bit steep for a CSL Reserve game, and took my seat on the bleachers.
The crowd was decently sized at kickoff, maybe about 40-50 people, and that grew to at least 75 at its busiest. The TFC kids wore all red while the Prospect team wore all white. There was a big balloon archway by a tent, a DJ, t-shirts for sale, and even a raffle! Unfortunately, there were no corner flags!
The OCAA released the 2011 men's and women's soccer schedules this morning. Both teams are playing seven games this season (rather than the prior eight), with the men playing four away and three home. The women's team is playing four at home and three away, with their first home game this evening at 5pm.
This year's Ontario Colleges Athletic Association fall sports schedule was affected by a strike by support staff at the various colleges in Ontario. With a tentative agreement reached between management and the staff yesterday, the OCAA announced that their fall league sports schedule would begin at the end of this week. Modified schedules and formats are expected to be released in the next few days.
Steve Douglas, the coach for the St. Lawrence College men's soccer team, informed me that they would be picking up this weekend where the schedule is now, and then fill in games that have been missed. That means that the St. Lawrence College Vikings would begin their schedule in Ottawa on Sunday with games at 1pm (women's) and 3pm (men's) against La Cite.
The second game of the day was scheduled to be played on Tindall Field on the main Queen's campus due to a scheduling conflict at Richardson Stadium with the football team. As such, I decided to skip home to grab some dinner after the early game and then headed down to the men's game, arriving just in time to see the second half kick off.
On a nice Friday afternoon, Queen's University hosted the other local university, RMC, out at Richardson Stadium this afternoon. Due to work obligations, I was unable to get to the game in time for its kickoff at 3:30pm, and got there in the 22nd minute of play.
To put today's game into perspective, it is best to know that over the past few years, the Queen's women's team has done very well, winning the CIS championship last fall, while RMC's team has not done quite so well. Despite this, each time Queen's and RMC play each other, the games are very tight and very even with RMC's fitness matching well against the skill of the Queen's players.
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.
The second match of the afternoon was between the men's teams. Last year Queen's won both encounters by scores of 4-1 and 1-0. Once again, Queen's dominated the play in this encounter, as Trent did not seem quite as strong as the local squad.
For this game I was one of the assistant referees, working as AR1 on the team bench side of the field. In this role one of my duties was dealing with the substitutions and the benches (if necessary). Fortunately, in this game, both teams were well skilled with few fouls during the game, and there were few reasons for either bench to get upset with events on the field of play.
Sunday was another good day to go watch a soccer game. I was scheduled to be one of the officials for the second game of the day (the Men's game), and decided to prepare myself by taking in the early game.
I arrived several minutes into the early game, Queen's wearing dark blue and Trent wearing all whites. Last season, Queen's dominated both games with Trent by a combined score of 13-1. This game was far different.
The early tone was set by Queen's, but Trent absorbed the pressure well and made several strong counterattacks. This led to a corner about halfway through the first half; a strong ball was put across the box and Trent striker Brittany Forester rose above one of her teammates and a Queen's defender to nod the ball into the back of the net to give Trent a surprise lead.
On a completely lovely day without a cloud in the sky (and not too hot either), I took Katie for a little walk out and about and went down to Richardson Stadium on the Queen's West Campus to watch the Queen's Gaels women's team play their home opener against the Ottawa Gee Gees.
Last year, the Gee Gees won both games against Queen's by a 1-0 scoreline, but those were the only two losses by Queen's en route to winning the Canadian Championships out in PEI. As Ottawa always gives Queen's a very tough game, yesterday was no different. I only managed to see the second half of the game, but what I saw was Ottawa all over Queen's, getting a lot of good chances, but not being able to get anything from them.
This is a new blog that I've decided to start on a total lark. I've been a big proponent of the recent resurgence of the "Support Local Football" movement. What began as a grassroots movement hit it big with discussions on the Canadian Soccer News site and eventually led to the "Support Local Football" video below. The video was filmed at The Football Factory in Toronto with a combination of supporters, media personalities, and players showing their support for the beautiful game at all levels:
The combination of these things, along with my recent last minute (bought my ticket the day before the match) trip down to Toronto to watch the Canadian Men's National Team play against St Lucia in a World Cup Qualifier led me to begin considering putting something like this together.
My initial focus will be on local games and events, including the local universities (Queen's University and RMC), the local college (St Lawrence College), and any local teams (whether local leagues or wider area), and I hope to expand from there, hopefully with other people writing about their local leagues, teams, or otherwise.
Any and all comments are welcome, and I'll try to respond to everything I can.
