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.
Local, and some not so local, soccer players hit the new Creighton Community Soccer Field over the weekend in hopes of being named to the Zone 9 soccer team for the Saskatchewan Summer Games. Zone 9 covers Creghton, La Ronge and Belledune, Sk, including all of the supporting communities. Huw Morris, a player evaluator with the Saskatchewan Soccer Association, travelled with the players as he and Dave Jenkin worked with the young players to help develop their skills. ÒMy job is to select and assess players to represent Zone 9 at the Saskatchewan Summer Games,Ó said Morris on day two of the two-day clinic. For the U14 soccer team only a dozen or so players showed up, which was a disapointing number for Morris, but he says next time there will be more. ÒThis weekend the players (were) mostly First Nations players,Ó he said. ÒObviously it is open to any players. ÒItÕs a good opportunity for the outlying communities to taste that success at the Summer Games level because a lot of these smaller communities donÕt have premier eltite teams that play in elite leagues.Ó With the turnout lower than expected, Morris said he was still pleased with what he was seeing. ÒWhat IÕm really pleased with is that IÕm seeing that they are a bunch of happy and wonderful bunch of kids. ÒWeÕve probably got two or three key players out here who have displayed enthousiasm and good attitude Ð which is what I call attitude to play. ÒThere are some quite good skills in their ability and on the field.Ó Compared to other places Morris has seen, he says the North is in need of help to get those soccer players on the ball. ÒWe do need to come together with some sort of a plan for the young players up here,Ó he said. ÒAnd that plan should obviously be with both parties of the Northern Communities and Saskatchewan Soccer Association.Ó As Morris hopes to see those plans in the works, over the next half a dozen years or so, he would like to develop age appopriate coaching for the area. ÒWhat I mean by that is to coach the right skills for the correct age level,Ó he said. And aside from getting more coaching clinics, for both players and coaches, Morris says he would like to see some new technology as well. ÒWhat I envision for the North is to have maybe some satelite training centres up North Ð maybe three or four of them. If you look at the venue right here, it is an absoluly beautiful facility. ÒIf we could have, for instance, one training centre for the development of the players, it could only do one thing for them,Ó he says, Òand thats to make them better.Ó A key to the game, which he enforces in his training camps and clinics, is technique. ÒWe want to teach the players up North how to pass the bal, receive the ball, how to dribble the ball, run with the ball, how to shoot the ball, and how to handle the ball,Ó said Morris. ÒThose are the vital parts of the development of young children.Ó The players who made their way our for the weekend-long session worked on their technique and were showed how to improve it. ÒTo do an evaluation camp, no matter where I am Ð around the country or around the world, whenever I do evaulations, I put the players on the field and watch them play and we evaluate them ÒWe look for their attitude on and off the field...which is very very important when playing.Ó This past weekend, which had players averaging 13 years old, Morris said he used the same approach, but in a different way. ÒThis weekend I sort of turned it back a little bit and I started to do... a lot of skills camps for working on their technique.Ó After running them on Saturday, Morris had the players out on the field on Sunday putting their skills to the test. ÒToday is putting it all together and they have shown us today what they can do on this beautiful facility.Ó Keeping it for the children, Morris says a big thing is to keep it friendly. ÒTo get success out of anything you do, you have to create a non-threatening environment and make it a fun learning environment. See 'Interac...' on pg. Continued from pg. ÒIÕll ask them what they want to do and they will interact as well.Ó After doing this for a number of years, Morris says for him, its about the culture he learns about about. ÒCulture is very important beacause of the people...lay down the atmosphere. When I talk about (how) coaching is based on your experience, itÕs the experience of the indivduals, the philosophy of culture in different ways and being able to understand that makes it easier to get out of the sessions what you want,Ó he says. ÒYou have to really spend a lot more time and really make them feel comfortable on the field and say ÔOK, lets go outÕ and demand it and they will fall into line.Ó For the players who will be moving on from the clinic in Creighton, they will then head to La Ronge in two weeks to tri-out against other players from the Zone 9 area.
