When all the dust had settled, St. Albert Impact teams had won medals in eight out of 10 divisions at the Victoria Day Classic soccer tournament last weekend.
St. Albert Soccer Association president Kevin Jones said while this kind of resounding success isn’t typical, it’s a result of the emphasis the association has placed on development.
“I think it reflects that SASA is a leader in the development of youth players, and the program we put together in our U10 development program when those kids are coming through, we’re seeing those groups come through,” he said.
The program, which is used as an example by soccer associations all across the country, focuses on doing away with any sort of qualifying tryouts so that every kid who wants to learn to play soccer at a high level has that opportunity.
Furthermore, emphasis is placed on having high-quality coaches for every age group.
“The philosophy is have the best coaches at the youngest levels for those kids during their prime development time, where they learn their technical skills with the best coaching available,” Jones said.
Two Impact teams earned gold medals for their performances, three teams picked up silver medals and four earned bronze.
Gold medals went to Rob Bourbonnais’ U16 Tier 1 girls, who beat out the Grand Prairie Wolves 2-0 on Sunday evening to take first place in the Girls U16/18 category, and Randy Herlein’s U16 Tier 2 girls, who took gold after a tight 3-2 win over the Sherwood Park Phoenix on Sunday afternoon.
The three teams that earned silver were: Brittany Kindzierski’s U14 Tier 1 girls who lost a tight 1-0 match Monday afternoon to the Calgary Celtics; Jason Brown’s U12 Tier 2 girls who earned the hardware due to round-robin standings; and Steve Houle’s U16 Tier 1 boys who also earned second place in the round-robin.
Bronze medals went to Pasquale Saccomanno’s U12 Tier 1 boys, Doug Van Der Veen’s U12 Tier 1 girls, Kevin Jones’ U16 Tier 3 boys and Norm Odinga’s U14 Tier 2 girls, who played Tier 1 at the tournament.
Jones said while not every team might have had the result they were looking for, there were many teams that had very impressive performances, and there are plenty of prospects to keep an eye on as the season progresses.
Odinga’s U14 girls, for example, are exclusively first-year players in the division but opted to play at Tier 1 rather than Tier 2.
“They wanted to come up and compete in Tier 1, and they’re doing very well for a younger group competing at that level,” he said.
Likewise Simon Vickers’ U14 Tier 1 boys will be a force to be reckoned with as they look to improve on last year’s already-impressive display.
“They finished second in outdoor provincials last year, so they’re very competitive with some great players in that group as well,” Jones said.
His own team, the U16 Tier 3 boys, is coming off a hot indoor season that saw them crowned champs.
“We’ve been on quite the run,” he said. “We had a winter with 26-1-2 and won provincials in indoor, and we’re just getting going in the summer but all the boys are back. They played really well.”
There were 59 teams playing in 10 different divisions, ranging from a U10 group all the way up to a U18 group, with several in between. Teams travelled from as far away as Regina, Yellowknife, Prince George and Calgary.
