The beautiful game has been stalled by some ugly weather and the boys of summer are still wearing their toques instead of their ball caps.
The Okotoks Minor Soccer Association is at least two weeks behind because snow has covered the 13 soccer fields in the community.
“We typically are out by the third week of April,” said Okotoks Minor Soccer Association (OMSA) coordinator Jean Cote on Friday. “We have been advised by the Town of Okotoks that we will be at least one or two weeks behind schedule.”
Cote made his comments before Saturday’s winter storm blew in faster than Renaldo making his way up the field.
The association had to hold its evaluations for its elite teams inside in Calgary rather than in the great outdoors in Okotoks due to no fields being available.
“Because we want to give the players a realistic opportunity to tryout we rented the Calgary Soccer Centre,” Cote said. “It’s significant because in our operations budget, we didn’t have anything for indoor tryouts.”
Cote estimated the cost of the tryouts at $2,000.
The season starts April 30, and Cote said he is hoping the weather will cooperate. He said if the season is delayed, the elite teams would have their season extended into the first few weeks of July. For the House leagues, the season could take a break and then continue in September as it did last season.
“The challenge is that we have additional costs to rent the fields,” Cote said.
He said the association could also face scheduling issues with other user groups if the soccer season is extended.
Okotoks’ community services manager Susan Lauren could not give a definitive answer as to when the Town’s 13 fields and 11 ball diamonds will open.
“We are hoping the weather patterns will turn around,” she said. “We need to have all the snow off the field and then all of the frost out of the ground. We also have to have the fields dry. The roots have to start growing. If we go on too early, it can cause long-lasting damage on the fields.”
She admitted the weatherman’s lack of cooperation is causing frustration for the Town.
“We have everybody (user groups) chomping at the bit,” Lauren said on Friday. “We do realize that some seasons might need to be extended, but we have to make sure we work with all of our user groups to make sure we have field access for everybody.”
She said in the summer rugby and some field lacrosse seasons also need to access the fields.
Okotoks Minor Baseball was scheduled to get into full swing this week, however, that has been put off indefinitely.
“I would like to get started in the next two weeks, but realistically it probably won’t be until after May 1,” said Ben Asuchak, president of Okotoks Minor Baseball.
He said some of the Okotoks Outlaws’ representative teams have been able to get in some practices at the Duvernay Fieldhouse, with some assistance from the Okotoks Dawgs.
He said it would be difficult to extend the season because of families going on holidays in June.
Holy Trinity Academy and Foothills Composite high schools have their own fields, but they aren’t about to let their teams chew up the fields either — especially during these tough economic times in education.
Foothills Falcons girls rugby coach Sophie Martin had her team practice in the small corner of the end zone at Foothills on April 13.
“We wanted to get some tackling practice in before our first game and you can’t do that in a gym,” Martin said.
The Falcons’ game against Strathmore on Monday was cancelled.
She said fortunately the Falcons don’t play their first home game until May 5 at which point she hopes Falcons Field will be dry.
The boys have been practicing indoors as well.
At Holy Trinity Academy (HTA), the Knights ’ first game scheduled for tonight (April 20) has been cancelled. Knights coach Joe Buck said he doesn’t anticipate any high school rugby being played until May due to the weather and the Easter break.
Meanwhile, Knights boys soccer coach Justin Urbani will be trying to select a team this week, but he will be doing so from the confines of the HTA gym, not the great outdoors.
“It is more difficult to evaluate players indoors,” Urbani said. “But what can you do?”
