Lindsey Stipdonk, 11, was already a fan of soccer to begin with, but after her morning on Nov.14, there's a good chance she fell in love with the sport that much more.
Stipdonk was one of close to 60 students from William McDonald School taking part in FIFA Football for Schools. It's a new program in the territory designed to help coaches and players grow the game. Stipdonk spent the entire morning taking part in various soccer drills, improving her game and meeting new people.
"Oh my gosh, I had so much," she said. "It was so interesting to learn new skills and everything. It was just really fun."
Sara McConaghy, director of community and fun development at Canada Soccer, explained that Football for Schools has been holding training sessions for educators for the past couple days, prior to the students arriving.
"The main components of the program are to teach life and technical skills through the game of soccer," said McConaghy.
It's amazing to see all the levels of soccer from across the world working together, highlighting FIFA, Canada Soccer and NWT Soccer, she noted.
"Very rarely does it happen that all of those levels of soccer are working collaboratively to make something like this happen for the kids."
Rare indeed, which makes Yellowknife all the more interesting a choice for a first stop. McConaghy said it's important that Canada Soccer supports rural and remote communities as well.
Of the 10 educators sharpening their soccer-related-skills, not all of them reside in Yellowknife. Mercedes Rabesca, a recreation manager in Behchoko, has had to leave the community at 7 a.m. to make it to the Fieldhouse for 8:30 a.m. for the past few days, she said. She added that her background and passion for soccer is what's been driving her to keep making that trip.
"We're trying to build capacity with soccer coaches back home and I just want more people to get the experiences but also have the resources available to them."
With what she's learned in the past few days, Rabesca said she's hoping to take that and share it with other educators back home.
"Hopefully other teachers can use this and help them with their programs," she said. "We're about to start our soccer programs back home and I'm very excited."
Melanie Thompson, executive director with NWT soccer, explained that a lot of schools have started playing indoor soccer this time of year.
"This is an opportunity where we can make sure they have the right skill development and teachers have the resources to provide those to kids," said Thompson.
For the future, Thompson said NWT soccer is partnering with the NWT School Sports Association to continue growing the game.
"With them, we're going to reach out to the schools, see if we can have someone to come up there in the different communities in the North and the south and even here around Yellowknife SA国际影视传媒� and come into the classroom and help them through the process and teach them how to use the resources."
