2005 Squamish Tournament

[Keeper]

Been a while since and I'm not complete sure who won the men's open. Akal over Club I, me thinks.

Anyways, here are just a few photos from Saturday. Not enough to justify a new category in the Gallery.

[Keeper]

A few more from Saturday . . .

[cside17]

Curious, if the winners got paid this year, as there has been turmoil, in the past!

Best Squamish memory, Ivor getting pummeld(sp)!

[Keeper]

Sunday's action . . .

[Keeper]

. . . and a few more . . .

[star #1]

Sikh Temple won the tournament.

[soca]

who played the finals???

[soca]

[quote=cside17]Curious, if the winners got paid this year, as there has been turmoil, in the past!

Best Squamish memory, Ivor getting pummeld(sp)![/QUOT
Elaborate, when was that?

[hard ballz]

Temple beat Akal in shootouts in the semis.........then defeated Club I. 1-0 in the finals.

p.s.....not sure if they paid or not!



Hard Ballz

[~SCORE MORE~]

So did the winners actually get there money this year?!?! The tournament was taken over by new directors this year, so there was a chance that they would be more responsible...

As for the format, I find it a bit questionable! (At least on the ladies side). It seems a bit unlogical to have Div. 4 teams in the same pool as Premier teams. It was really bizarre to be in this predicament. My team is a Div. 1 team and we experienced a range of scores. We lost one game by five goals and lost another by 10. On the opposite extreme we won a game by 12 goals!!! Hopefully there is a solution to this problem! When I talked to the head referee he told me that the ref of the game that we won 12-0 said that we were unsportsmenlike and mean! HAHA. Honestly we weren't trying to be mean, and it was so obvious that we were just passing the ball around a keeping posession. Unfortunately when you are standing in front of the goal with the ball at your feet you have no alternative but to shoot!

[Keeper]

That's been the same format as in years past. I imagine there's little way around it considering the numbers and variety of women that are interested and sign up. They already divide it up by age -- open & over 30's -- but I don't think it would be possible to create a premier competition and a Div 4 competition. The numbers just aren't there.

[SC]

Premier players are not supposed to be in the tourney at all. I didn't see any, but there sure were a lot of Premier B teams .

The tourney had a new director this year. So I think it was another building year to get to know the teams. No offense to Squamish, but they aren't up to snuff with the lower mainland scene, so they don't know the teams (divisions). Perhaps they might re-format next year to even things up. Having said that, they did turn away some womens teams this year, possibly due to not enough fields

I agree with the complaint about going overboard on the score, it's not the other teams fault that they were shoved into your category. However, I'm not sure what it's like to be shalacked (on the losing side of things).

[trece verde]

Lots of crazy things happen in Squamish, and not just on the field...

Apparently Chief Kickitfar experienced some financial difficulties that caused him to both resign from running the tourney and also to leave town. The Squamish Soccer District took over running things, and in the transition, a lot of things got "lost," including a number of team entries. My own team's entry in the geriatric division was "found" at about 4:30 on the Friday before the gong show. Nice, especially after we'd already contacted all our players and had to explain that the entry we'd submitted at the beginning of March had been "lost." The organizers apologized profusely, and said that a number of other teams were in the same position, but that they intended to have things better run for next year.

The usual gang of loonies appeared for the beer garden follies, including the Lomas women dresed up silly (loved the one with the pasties & tassles). Tricycle races and free kicks for beer helped us avoid the ridiculous lineups there. Stinking hot both afternoons (record high temperatures for Squamish that weekend), so the gardens were extremely well-occupied. De rigeur pisstakes of Hollywood's hair as he was setting up a shootout, of course...

Apparently, there were a large number of photos taken by a pro photog, who has posted them on his own site for sale . You can preview them, but not copy or download them there. PM me for the URL, because I don't want to give this guy any free advertising.

I got recruited by Eye-yacks in the o30's; we lost out on mighthaves (one off the post and a beckham'ed penno) to Richmond Firefighters who went on to split the pot with Coogers. Glad I only had to play Telus league after that...

Hopefully the organizers have learned a bit and can get their shite together better for next year...

beerz (off to have one now),

stew

[trece verde]

SC:

Noted as per my previous post that teams weren't turned away so much as their entries were "lost." That being said, the number of entries was smaller overall than previous years (biggest one I remember had more than 80 teams).

I think what you'd find is that with the women's games only being 7-a-sides and on smaller fields, that one ringer can be a lot more dominant than she would be able to be on a full field. We watched a couple from the safety and comfort of the beer gardens, and you could definitely notice the unevenness of the groupings.

SCORE:

Nobody (not even an FVSL Div 2 team) should ever lose a game 12-0, especially in a tournament. How do you think the poor schmoes on the other end of that felt? By the sounds of things, you weren't in any danger of advancing to the finals, so why run the score up like that? Bench your strikers, or put one of them in goal. That's not even a pisstake....

no beerz for you - out!

stew