By Irek Kusmierczyk
Winter is almost here and the time is now to register for Canada’s favourite sport: soccer.
Across Canada, the demand for soccer has surpassed even hockey. In 1999, over 700,000 players swarmed soccer fields, while just over 500,000 hockey players hit the ice, according to the Canadian Soccer Association’s statistics.
And that demand has translated into success for Ottawa’s burgeoning indoor soccer leagues, which carry the popular sport through the fall and winter.
The Eastern Ontario District Soccer Association says there are over 2,000 soccer players officially registered in the two most popular indoor leagues in Ottawa: Coliseum Indoor Soccer and the Uniglobe Soccer League.
Both leagues say they are growing.
Fred Juett, president of Coliseum Inc., which operates the league at the Coliseum next to Lansdowne Park, says they began with 100 teams in 1994. This year they will accommodate 270 teams.
“The appeal is affordability, but also fitness and the number of people that play,” says Juett.
He says the only cost is registration since a good pair of running shoes is all the equipment a player needs.
Centretown’s rising soccer star, Lucas Zinn, has his shoes and says he’s excited about the start of the indoor season.
“It’s the little passes, and it’s not boot and chase,” says the 13-year-old. “It makes the game more fun and you meet lots of people.”
His mother, Wendy Daigle Zinn, brought Lucas to the Coliseum when he was five.
She says indoor soccer improved Lucas’s skill level for outdoor soccer. Last year he was invited to play soccer in France, and next summer he’s off to Germany.
Juett says it’s too late to register a team for the winter season, which kicks off in mid-November, but individual players may still sign up. The Coliseum offers soccer for men and women, boys and girls, ages nine and up. There is also an industrial league for corporate kickers who’ll chair halftime huddles with co-workers and pass balls not memos.
The price of registration at the Coliseum has increased from last year, depending on the type of league and size of the field teams play on. Last year prices for teams of 12 to 15 players ranged from $775 for a small field, $1,000 for a medium one, and $1,325 for a large. This year, there are two sizes. The price will range from $1,000 for a medium and $1,590 for the large.
In exchange for higher prices, players will get a larger field, a professional surface, and a higher ceiling as the league moves under the new dome being built for Lansdowne Park. The dome is scheduled to be set up between Nov. 18 and Nov. 25.
“The surface is first class,” says Juett. “It plays like grass and there are no burns.”
Juett says the growth of soccer in general is due in large part to the increase in women’s soccer.
“Women’s soccer has exploded,” says Juett. “It’s gone through the roof.”
The number of women’s leagues have doubled at the Coliseum since 1994, says Juett.
Hassan Dayfallah, president and founder of Uniglobe Soccer League, says his indoor league was one of the first in Ottawa. When he began 11 years ago, there were only 10 teams. Now there are 80.
Uniglobe begins its season at the end of October for both genders beginning with the under-13 league.
The cost is $1,000 per team, and games are held in a triple-gym at St. Patrick’s Intermediate school on Heron Road.
There are other indoor soccer leagues and programs scattered around town in school gyms and community centres.
There is a soccer program for children at McNabb Community Centre at 180 Percy St. Games run on Fridays from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m.
The Ottawa-Carleton Futsal League also schedules soccer in school gyms.