With the snow melting, temperatures rising and summer fast approaching it’s the time of year when, in normal conditions, members of the 100 Mile House Soccer Association would be getting ready to take to the field.
Due to social distancing guidelines and the general state of the world, however, the soccer season in 100 Mile House is currently on indefinite hold. Nicole Weir has been a coach with the association for 10 years now and became its president last year.
“It’s been really interesting, we’ve definitely have had our hands full and this year is obviously a depressing year because we thought we were going to be planning a season and now we’re not,” Weir said.
When the pandemic was first declared and Canada started to impose restrictions and guidelines Weir said that, much like everyone else, they employed a take it ‘two-weeks at a time’ strategy. However, with school out of session and restrictions still in place, they’re finding themselves unable to organize a season as they cannot exactly have children gathering together on a field to play a contact sport. If she was organizing something like tennis, she remarked, maybe they’d be okay.
As COVID-19 has made it impossible to play soccer, Weir said, it’s unlikely that the season will be able to take place. Normally, their season runs from May to June and requires a few weeks of planning and organization to pull off. While it’s possible they may still have some type of season in June, it’s impossible to say at the moment, really.
“Should we get information that we’re allowed to stop physically distancing in June, then we would probably do our best to try and make something happen,” Weir said. “We just don’t have enough information right now though to move forward with any plans for a season.”
Typically Weir said the association fields between 26 to 30 teams with around 300 players spread out across them from the ages of four to 18. Her advice to them is to keep up their skills as best as they can by practising their dribbling, juggling, throw-in and other basic skills.
“If you have a sibling, go outside and play with them,” Weir said. “There are lots of resources online for different drills you can do on your own, to keep up your skills.”
If they do end up putting on a season, Weir said they will announce it on the 100 Mile House Soccer Association Facebook page and via a group email. She said that both she and the rest of the association are looking forward to the time when they can hold another season and get their players back out onto the field.
