WOSC meets the Ottawa Fury

From one sport to the next! Last time it was football camp. This time: soccer!

As you may know, Lucas played soccer for the first time this year. Well, "real" soccer anyway. When he was 4, he did some sort of soccer playgroup type thing, but that doesn't count. Anyway, he's had a fairly good time although he's missed quite a few practices and games due to vacations, but I guess that's just summer being summer.

This past Tuesday, several of the West Ottawa Soccer Club teams got a chance to meet the players of the Ottawa Fury, our professional soccer team. They're in the NASL, which is one level below the MSL. I thought it was just going to be us watching their practice, but it ended up being about 45 minutes of the kids scrimmaging with the players and then another 20-30 minutes of doing autographs. As a result, the kids had an absolute blast.

Prior to the Fury players arriving, the WOSC coaches combined all the kids, regardless of age or gender, and let them scrimmage. It was pretty cool since Lucas was able to play with kids the were 2-3 years older than him and he hung in there.

Once the players did arrive, they formed a game that was mostly U8 Boys vs U8 Girls. It's the first time I can recall that I've seen boys against girls in any sport, and I was honestly a little surprised at just how much the boys dominated the girls. I mean, I know males are generally stronger/faster/etc than females, but I didn't expect such a big difference at this age. It also didn't help the girls that the boys were much more aggressive when going for the ball. Suffice to say, the Fury players helped the girls out quite a bit more than the boys, in order to keep it close.

As I mentioned above, the last part of the event was an autograph session. Lucas initially had the players sign a little booklet that they had given out, but by the end he was having them sign his shoes. Here, he points out the perfect placement for a signature.

You can't have a meet the players event without getting a picture with the mascot. In this case, it's Sparky. Incidentally, Lucas had Sparky sign his name on the back of both of his shoes.

Since I haven't posted many videos lately, here are a few from the event.

First up, a bit from the scrimmage with the Fury.



This second one is a shorter clip from the game and was about the closest Lucas got to getting the ball from a Fury player.



Finally, Lucas taking a shot at one of the Fury goalies.



I don't expect anyone from the Fury will see this, but I did want to mention that the whole event was a class act. The players were both friendly and accessible, and the kids were kept entertained throughout the full session. I definitely hope they do something like this again next year.