[Maritime Q-Scout]

Addick, now I must admit I never played soccer/football (I'm gonna call it soccer for simplicity sake and avoid confusion with North American rhetoric).

l have friends that played, I'd assume at the club level like I played Little League Baseball, and Minor Hockey. I do believe over the years the minor soccer system (if that's what it's called) in Nova Scotia has grown, I think I heard a stat a few years back that there were more kids registered for soccer in the summer than hockey in the winter.

After the elementary school level organizations/teams there were the schools. Playing on any sporting team was is a big deal in NS. Be it Soccer, hockey, basketball, or if the school has it football. The four sports were treated equally. The only real execption would be the lack of a big soccer tournament in the area. Where I'm from there's two HUGE high schools sporting events: Coal Bowl, a basketball tournament hosted by Breton Education Centre in New Waterford that attracts teams from Ontario and Quebec, and Red Cup, a hockey tournament that attracts (or atleast used to) teams from Ontario and Quebec. Both have thier venues packed to the rafters with fans watching them, to the point that if the major junior team is playing at home on one of those weekends Centre200 is empty for the game. I remember as a kid feeling how electric the County Arena was for Riverveiw/Sydney Academy games (still nothing better than a RHS/SA game at Red Cup. . . have to take out my Blue and White here and scream F U Riverview!).

However there isn't any soccer tournament that does the same thing. Does that hurt awareness? I'd think so.

After high school, there's CIS. Soccer is taken seriously by the local university here, in fact Cape Breton University is hosting the CIS Women's National Championships this fall (I'm on the host committee if you have any idea/suggestions I'd love to hear them). Their men's program has started to take off as well. My question is, where do you go from there?

One of the women's players from a few years back played for the University Team Canada, and CBU's head coach coached them I believe (not sure if he still does).

As for the men there is a Nova Scotia Senior League. It seems to be one par with the Maritime Senior Baseball League. A place for the 20-somethings to play competitively, however I don't know if there's anything for them other the weekend games and such. I believe the soccer league is considered a higher level of play relative to teh baseball league, as the soccer league has games televised on Eastlink Cable akin to Major Juinor hockey.

I think soccer has developped a lot in Nova Scotia over the past 10 years. There are more options now than there were, but we're still not near your end goal (which should be ours, and well the country's goal as a whole).

(I'm kind of ranting/typing unorganized thoughts here incase you didn't catch on by now . . . infact 98.7342% of my posts are ranting/unorganized thoughts)

Do you think it's possible to use the education system as a means of development akin to your teir one approach, further develop leagues such as the Nova Scotia Soccer League (amateur club) and expand upon an MLS type league (professional)?