Goalkeeper Sarah Jo Howatt of the Revelstoke U13 girls team faces down a shot during Saturday morning action against the Calgary Saints.

Goalkeeper Sarah Jo Howatt of the Revelstoke U13 girls team faces down a shot during Saturday morning action against the Calgary Saints.

15th annual Little Bear a tremendous success

Revelstoke boys earn two bronze at 44-team home tournament.

By Alan Chell, Little Bear organizer

The 15th annual Little Bear soccer tournament was a tremendous success.

Forty-four youth soccer teams from B.C. and Alberta enjoyed a great weekend of soccer and Revelstoke hospitality. Parents of the Revelstoke teams do a great job of looking after things like nets, corner flags, keeping results and providing information for our guests.

In addition to the soccer, we held a skills competition Saturday night that attracted a crowd of several hundred people to watch the players demonstrate their ball juggling ability and penalty shot taking skills. Congratulations to Ben McDonald of Revelstoke who had the best ball juggling time of all participants (he was in the U12 division!)

Saturday night also saw several hundred players and family members show up for the pool party. A big thank you to the City of Revelstoke for delaying their maintenance shut down so this extremely popular tournament event could take place. The city did a fantastic job with field preparation and tournament support.

Organizer Alan Chell expects 2013 will be even bigger and better as we will be able to utilize the two new school fields and this will enable us to accommodate even more teams and provide earlier Sunday playing times for all the teams who travel long distances annually for Little Bear.

This year saw four teams from Williams Lake, six from Calgary, seven from Canmore, six from Kootenay South and five from the Columbia Valley, in addition to teams from the Shuswap, Kamloops, Nelson and Golden.

We very much appreciate their support of our tournament.

Results are as follows:

U11 boys

Gold: Kamloops; Silver: Shuswap; Bronze: Revelstoke

U12 boys:

Gold: Canmore; Silver: Revelstoke; Bronze: Columbia Valley

U15 boys

Gold: Columbia Valley; Silver: Nelson; Bronze: Revelstoke

U18 boys

Gold: Shuswap; Silver: Kootenay South; Bronze: Canmore

U12 girls

Gold: Kamloops; Silver: Kootenay South; Bronze: Williams Lake

U13 girls

Gold: Calgary Saints; Silver: Williams Lake; Bronze: Kootenay South

U14 girls

Gold: Calgary Rangers; Silver: Calgary Spurs; Bronze: Kootenay South

U16 girls

Gold: Columbia Valley; Silver: Salmon Arm; Bronze: Canmore

U18 girls

Gold: Calgary; Silver: Williams Lake; Bronze:  Kootenay South

 

Revelstoke Times Review