Jill Price (left), Justin Price (centre) and Ezra Cremers stand together after the South Okanagan Youth Soccer Association's town meeting last week. SOYSA held a town meeting to introduce residents to this year's improved program, new staff, and finally, to allow people to get a jump on early registration. Photo by Mathew White
A quick look outside will tell you that you would have to be crazy to be thinking about playing soccer at this time of the year.
But that certainly wasn’t the feeling at the Sonora Community Centre last Tuesday night as more than 30 people came out of the cold for the South Okanagan Youth Soccer Association’s (SOYSA) town meeting.
“Osoyoos is a community that’s had a soccer tradition since the ’50s,” said Steve Coates, operations manager with SOYSA.
The town meeting was used as a way to introduce the community to the new SOYSA program and staff, and at the same time, give people a chance to register for the spring and winter programs.
Ezra Cramers, new head coach and executive director of SOYSA, spoke with enthusiasm as he walked the crowd through some of the improvements being made to this year’s program.
“The days of here are some balls and cones are over,” said Cremers.
In total, 10 different areas have been improved this season, including new local and regional staff, improved coaching programs, a new SOYSA website, the new winter program, consistent game times, regional investments and referee training.
“This year is going to be very different from the past,” said Cremers. “The possibilities are endless.”
Of all the different changes being made this year, an important one to note is the introduction of the new winter program, he said.
Cremers said living on the coast, he was used to playing soccer up to 10 months out of the year. But in Osoyoos, without the luxury of mild winters and indoor facilities, soccer fanatics are limited to six months a year and that’s something he wants to change.
SOYSA will be hosting three different, six-week soccer programs in Osoyoos (U5-7, U8-10 and U11-14) beginning February 10.
Another exciting addition to this year’s program is the fact SOYSA now has a small budget to hire local head coaches who can work within the community on a regular basis.
For the past three years, Jill and Justin Price have volunteered to coach Osoyoos’ teams, but this year they will be doing it officially, and with more than 40 years of soccer experience between the two of them, Osoyoos couldn’t have asked for two better coaches.
“We love the game,” said Jill. “It’s our passion.”
With soccer now sitting as the number one youth sport in Canada in terms of participation, Jill and Justin agreed there’s no reason there shouldn’t be a full roster this year.
And for those who are thinking soccer may be slightly out of budget, SOYSA has a program in place (provided by Canadian Tire and KidSport) to help anyone less fortunate get on the field and have a good time.
“We just want children to come out and play and with a program like this we’re able to get those funds in for them,” said Justin. “They’ll work around anything to help get those children out there.”
“We’d love to see every kid in the community playing soccer,” added Jill.
Despite the fact a number of improvements have been made this season, registration fees have not changed.
Before February 7 there is an early-bird discount for registration with U5-10 costing $140 and U11-18 running at $150.
After February 7, those prices will each increase by $25 each until February 28, at which time they will once again increase by another $10 per age category.
SOYSA is hosting two more registration sessions at the Sonora Community Centre before February 7. They will run on January 23 and 27 from 3-6 p.m., respectively.
Anyone looking for more information on registration or SOYSA can visit the SOYSA website at www.soysa.net or email the operations manager at [email protected].
