On Sunday morning, 10 teens from North Vancouver stood, arms linked, under the scorching Kamloops summer sun.
It was the provincial soccer championship final, and the two teams were in a shootout, fighting for gold following an exhausting and thrilling battle that ended in a 3-3 tie. Through four rounds of shooters, each player had scored. It was now, essentially, sudden death. One miss could mean silver, one hit could bring gold.
North Van’s fifth shooter walked to the spot, placed the ball, stepped back and took a deep breath as the crowd fell silent.
I remember all the provincial championships I played in when I was a sporting lad some 30 years ago. There was senior basketball my Grade 12 year. In the three-game zone final we dropped the first one at home and then won twice on the road to make the provincial championships. There we went on a strong run all the way to the gold medal game, where we got absolutely crushed by a dominant team.
I made two provincial 100-metre sprint finals, finishing eighth in both. Those who know the ins and outs of the sprinting world might recognize that ranking by a different name: last place.
Gold finally came on the soccer pitch. In a provincial final played right in my hometown, we battled our longtime rivals in a tough match on a field that was absolutely swamped by a Prairie storm that rolled through earlier in the day. With the score tied late in the game I found some daylight and went streaking into their box, took aim, swung my leg and … missed the ball completely. While I sped to glory, the ball had stopped dead behind me in a huge puddle of water.
But my pal Jonesy, a clever little Brit with a wicked left foot, was following behind, and ripped that suddenly stopped and soggy soccer ball as hard as he could, splashing it into the back of the net. Victory.
Apologies for all this random reminiscing – I hope you haven’t jumped out of the nearest window to escape all of this gratuitous glory days bluster.
The point isn’t how incredible those achievements are (they’re really not, in the grand scheme of things), it’s how vivid those memories are to this day. I can’t tell you what happened at my grad ceremony or what I did on my first day at work, but I can still feel my soaked blue and white soccer jersey clinging to my body after Jonesy and I celebrated his goal by hydroplaning through the largest pitchside puddle on our bellies.
Last Sunday I was back on the pitch, this time as a coach. With provincial gold on the line, I watched my fifth and final shooter confidently pound the ball into the back of the net.
Our opponent picked his spot and fired … over the bar.
“Yeaaaaahhhhhh!!!” we roared as we stormed the pitch, racing to our beaming, screaming keeper. I haven’t sprinted that fast since those days on the track.
I’m not saying we’ve done anything unheard of or unique. Dozens of North Shore teams win provincial or sometimes even national titles each year. Another NVFC team claimed silver on Sunday; a team in a higher division won gold the week prior; and a week before that two teams full of North Shore players, playing in the province’s highest youth soccer league, won championship titles that earned them berths in national championships coming up in the fall.
Softball and baseball are in full swing now too, with more medals likely to come. Hockey, football, rugby, field hockey – North Shore trophy cases sag under the weight of the hardware.
It’s not a unique accomplishment, but it absolutely is a special one for each of those teams.
I know I’ll never forget this team, the dazzling and draining work they put in to win four games in four days against their division’s toughest opponents. It was special for us, for all of those who supported them through the rainy winter games, year after year. It was special for everyone who made sacrifices for this, using their hard-earned money and vacation time to let their kids chase a dream. It was special (I hope) for the little siblings who caused gleeful havoc on the hotel waterslide and then clanged the team to victory with the world’s loudest cowbell.
Most of all it was special for those players, who spent every Friday night last year practicing their free kicks and crosses rather than hanging out at the mall.
I hope, 30 years from now, those boys are telling their own kids, or whoever wants to listen, about the time they gathered on a little stage in a Kamloops parking lot, received a cool wooden trophy and thrust it into the sky as the organizers queued up the Queen classic “We Are the Champions.”
I’m so thankful opportunities like this still exist, and there are dedicated people all over the map working to put on events that give kids a chance to build their own unforgettable memories. There are many moments in a lifetime. Only a few last forever.
Andy Prest is the editor of the North Shore News, author of a regular humour/lifestyle column and proud coach of the NVFC Maverick10 team. He promises not to write about this win every week.
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