Both boys and girls attended Team Sask. try outs at the Alfred Jenkins Field House last weekend for the upcoming 2022 Canada Summer Games. (Saskatchewan Soccer/Twitter)

By Ian Gustafson

Growing Game

Sask. Soccer holds camp in P.A. in preparation for 2022 Canada Summer Games

Apr 6, 2022 | 1:00 PM

Children from all over the province came to Prince Albert last weekend for the chance to represent Saskatchewan at the 2022 Canada Summer Games in Niagara Falls.

Over 170 soccer players and coaches from all corners of the province spent the weekend at the Alfred Jenkins Field House for the second weekend of tryouts. If chosen, there will be two Team Saskatchewan U18 squads, a boy and a girls’ team who will represent the province at the games Aug. 6 to 21.

Markus Reinkens, interim technical director with Saskatchewan Soccer said 18 players will be selected per team with five on reserve. They had 100 boys and 72 girls registered for the camp.

“Some tough decisions to make with that many players coming out so we’re very excited. That’s our biggest number of participants that we’ve had for one of these types of events or for these games,” Reinkens said.

He explained the first camp was held the weekend before in Weyburn before the most recent weekend in P.A. The idea of holding it in different locations makes it accessible for more people to attend the camps but also to see some of the different facilities in Saskatchewan.

National

Ottawa to remove 30% investment cap for Canadian pension funds

2h ago

Budget woes

Golf and curling centre faces grim season without financial boost

6h ago

Raiders AGM

Raiders impact on Prince Albert local economy continues to go up: AGM report

Dec 12, 2024

Reinkens said the reason why more people came to their tryouts is they’ve established more high-quality programs across Saskatchewan.

“One of our main strategies and contents that we want to make sure is that more groups are aware of it as well,” he said. “Our promotion for the event and making sure that it was being announced to everyone across the province was a priority for us this time through. And I think there’s just more players in that type of environment that are ready to challenge for a position for that spot.”

An important note they’ve noticed these last two weekends is the improved quality of player talent. In previous years, he said there were times where they were still looking for players after the camp.

“Now we got a situation where we’ve got some really tough decisions, there’s more players than we have obviously that can be selected to the team, which is a good problem for us to have. But the quality within those players is extraordinary as well too, so plenty of players could make this group.”

The team will now face some cuts as Soccer Saskatchewan will reduce the group in pursuit of their final rosters, but for now no definitive rosters have been selected.

“Just want to thank Prince Albert Youth Soccer Association for hosting us again. They did a great job, the facility is first class and the support from the organization to make sure everything ran smoothly was awesome,” he added.

—

Ian.Gustafson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @IanGustafson12