A young soccer player from Hay River got to experience a national championship tournament earlier this month after a surprise invitation to compete with a team from Yellowknife.
Fourteen-year-old Brianna Goodwin was asked to play with the Sundogs from the Yellowknife Bay Soccer Club at the Toyota U-17 Cup in Surrey, B.C., from Oct. 3 to 8.
That is the national championships for soccer teams in that age category.
"I was extremely surprised," said Goodwin of the invitation. "I was really excited."
She was the only player from Hay River at the championships.
She explained she was invited to play with the Sundogs because she knows a lot of the girls on the team and the coach is the father of player Wren Acorn, one of her friends.
"So knowing Wren and competing against her in soccer and track, in all the sports, I just made connections," said Goodwin.
She also noted that she played futsal SA国际影视传媒� an indoor variation of soccer SA国际影视传媒� at this year's Arctic Winter Games and Sundogs' coach Joe Acorn probably saw her play there.
Goodwin doesn't normally play with the Sundogs, just the very rare tournament including a previous competition in Edmonton with a younger girls' team from the Yellowknife Bay Soccer Club.
This month's tournament in British Columbia was her first time at a Canadian national soccer tournament.
"It was a lot to handle," she said. "There were a lot of people. It was very exciting and there was always something going on. So I always had something to do. It was different."
The Sundogs did not do very well at the national tournament, but that was not a surprise for Goodwin and did not bother her.
"We basically got creamed, but I learned from all the other teams about teamwork and skill and the capabilities I want to have when I'm their age," she said, noting that two other members of the Sundogs were also just 14 years old and competing against older players.
She said the tournament was more for the experience, and no one on the team was bothered by losing its four games.
"I didn't really care. No one really did," she said. "I'm not going to lie. We went there knowing that we were not going to be the best team. So it wasn't really like, 'Aw, we lost.'"
Most importantly, Goodwin SA国际影视传媒� a Grade 9 student at Diamond Jenness Secondary School SA国际影视传媒� noted, "It was fun."
Joe Acorn, the head coach, knew that the tournament wasn't going to be one of the best showings ever for an outdoor soccer team from the NWT.
As he expected, it was an eye-opener in both pace and skill.
In the end, neither the girls team nor the boys team from the Yellowknife Bay Soccer Club won a game, but winning wasn't the goal this year.
"I knew it would be tougher than it was last year," said Acorn. "A lot of the kids that made the trip this year are still eligible for U-15 and, if you take the average age of our teams, it was about U-15-and-a-half."
Acorn said the games against the larger provinces were where the NWT teams were really blown out of the water, but the games were a bit closer against the smaller jurisdictions.
"We only lost 2-0 to Saskatchewan and 3-0 to New Brunswick in the girls side, so it wasn't a total runaway for the other teams," he said. "This was all about learning and experiencing what it's like at a higher level."
Acorn said the decision whether to take teams or not was a tough one, but in the end, taking them this year will make them better for next year.
"Going this year with young teams was a good learning experience both for the players and the coaches," he said. "The kids got to see the level of play and we as coaches got to see what we need to work on over the next year."
At the tournament, Goodwin played right wing, which is an offensive midfield position.
She has been playing soccer for about five years.
SA国际影视传媒� with files from James McCarthy
