By Nigel Maxwell

P.A. soccer achieving enrolment goals

Apr 25, 2018 | 2:00 PM

Soccer fields across Prince Albert have begun to dry up and will soon be bustling with the sounds of young, competitive athletes.

The Prince Albert Youth Soccer Association’s house league is scheduled to start April 30, and enrolment numbers are way up this year. Technical Director Dragan Ivkovic told paNOW they have 1,270 youth enrolled this year, an increase of almost 100 players since last season.

“It’s so tough to organize these kids because we are limited with time we can spend on the fields, so the biggest challenge is trying to accommodate all these players,” he said. “On a Monday we may need like seven outdoor fields and then you have to have seven experienced referees so it’s really getting tough.”

Ivkovic said they’ve been lucky to have some so many qualified coaches and an ample number of volunteers willing to help out. One of the reasons for the increase this year is the number of Indigenous youth enrolled. Ivkovic said he has made it his personal mission to get younger Indigenous kids involved in soccer, and he travelled to a number of First Nation communities in the area including Montreal Lake, Little Red, Big River and Beardy’s Okemasis.

“I think there’s a lot of potential in the First Nations communities but the biggest problem is we discover them when they are 15 or 16 and they come to play for the city for the very first time and then it’s too late [for them to properly develop as players],” he said.

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Ivkovic’s efforts appears to have paid off. There are 660 indigenous youth enrolled this year and one of the strongest divisions is youth-under-seven. Ivkovic said soccer has become the biggest sports in Canada and the benefit to many parents is that it is one of the cheapest sports.

“Unfortunately some parents are, especially youth ages five to seven, are deciding just how much they can afford and our job is to try to keep them involved,” he said.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell