Over time in Yellowknife, there have been variations of holiday soccer tournaments. Many who have been around long enough will remember the Merry Kickmas event hosted by the Yellowknife United Soccer Club.
But the latest iteration of soccer around the new year has a new name and it appears to be just as popular as ever, if not more.
The Mini Champions League is what it’s now known as and was organized by the Yellowknife United Soccer Club, better known as the Sundogs. It happened at the Fieldhouse from Jan. 5 to 7 and according to organizer Joe Acorn, the numbers went beyond even what he thought they would be.
“We had a lot of walk-ins over the course of the weekend,” he said. “I haven’t added up the numbers (as of Sunday) but I think we were right around 200 players. It’s more than any other winter tournament that we’ve held in Yellowknife. We get more for Mini World Cup (in the summer) because the university kids come back home, but this indoor one was the biggest we’ve ever had.”
Like tournaments in the past, players signed up as individuals and were placed on teams in various age categories. All of the teams were balanced out so as to not have “stacked” teams that would run away with the title. In keeping with the theme of the tournament, all of the teams were named after a squad currently playing in this season’s UEFA Champions League in Europe.
“No Manchester United this year,” said Acorn with a laugh.
Acorn said the way he organizes teams is through what’s known as the ‘snake draft’.
“I separate the kids by age and gender and do the draft,” he said. “The first four kids will be put onto teams and the next four kids will be placed in reverse order to make them as even as possible. I’ll go through the boys, then the girls and it works out really well.”
For example, once the first players have been placed, the next set of players will be placed starting with the team that was last to receive a player the first time around.
The only issue Acorn has with selecting the teams is what to do with the players he isn’t familiar with.
“I might know around three-quarters of the kids, but then a kid shows up who I don’t know,” he said. “They could be either really good or really bad and it throws the balance off. It’s a bit of a crapshoot with the unknown factor. The walk-ins are the same way — I hate turning people away and I may know the kid. Now I have to figure out where to put you because I know you’re really good.”
All of the divisions went off well with one slight exception in the U9 division, said Acorn.
“The U9s tend to have more kids that I don’t know because it’s more kids trying soccer out or more who don’t play soccer regularly,” he said. “We had one team that lost all five of their games and I hate seeing that happen. Maybe that team didn’t jell or some players weren’t as good as I thought they were, so that makes it harder.”
The dates in the new year are when future tournaments are going to be held, said Acorn, and that was based on parent surveys.
“In tournaments past, you’d see empty stands because everyone is just so busy around the holidays,” he said. “I asked some parents whether they liked having it held after the new year and they told me it was much better and you saw it in the stands. We had a lot of spectators because they didn’t have to drop off their kid and go running around.”