The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Welcome to the second article of the season. I have been involved in soccer for many years, but I still get excited about soccer every year. Frankly I love it, in the same way that hockey players get excited in the fall. Someone asked me what the champions league is, having watched the mighty reds of Manchester beat Arsenal last Tuesday. The champion's league is made up of the top teams in each of the European leagues playing each other. Each season the teams who finish between first and fourth depending on their league are eligible to play in the champion's league, it really is a team made up of champions. The draw of course is money, literally hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, with games being watched by over 30 million viewers. North America has its own champions league, with not quite the same financial incentive, but it is growing in TV revenue and crowds. Last year the Montreal Impact made it to the semi finals, losing to the eventual winners. Local news Phantom lake soccer club begins its 2009 season today. With players from three divisions starting. Division 1, 3 and 5 all start tonight with divisions 2 and 4 starting tomorrow. The Phantom Lake soccer club is run entirely by volunteers. Ladies soccer started in Flin Flon last season, and for a first season it was a great success. The executive this year have made a couple of changes, the most notable being a minimum age of 16. Once again we will start with soccer practice and skills practice, then split up into teams and play. This worked great last year and as the skill level of the players improved the quality of the games also improved and we saw some very competitive games. So come out and have fun, learn a new game if you have never played before, and keep fit. High school soccer news The kweens held the first of what will be many practice sessions yesterday, the Hapnot Kweens can only officially exist from the start of the school year, and during the Manitoba high school athletic association soccer season. Our name in the spring and summer is the Flin Flon Fury, the girls are the same, and the training is just as intense. We are privileged in Flon Flon by having some superb female athletes. I coach the team and feel honoured each year to do so, I am fortunate to have as co-coach Megan Strachan, with former Kween Kyrra Kosar and Murray McIntyre as defensive and skills coaches respectively. The laws of soccer for newbies explained For those of you who have children playing soccer for the first time, or are playing adult soccer for the first time, each week I will attempt to explain one law. Soccer only has 17 laws(or rules), and I will start halfway down the rule list with number 11, offside. This is the hardest for a referee to judge, and causes more discussion on the field of play than any other. The easiest way that I explain this law is to imagine that the last defender is a moving blue line if it were a hockey game. The forward can not be ahead of the last defender when the ball is played ahead to them. There must be two opposition players between you and the goal when the ball is played. You can not be offside from a corner kick, goal kick, a throw in, or if you are in your own half of the field. Simple, isn't it? Try judging that as a referee at 20 miles per hour! Until next week Ð keep on kicking
