More tournaments!

Don't forget!  This weekend is the CASA Cleveland Indoor Classic tournament.  Brendan's games are all Saturday, between 3pm and 8:30 pm at Krenzler Field, on the campus of CSU.  It should be exciting and interesting!  They've shaken things up a bit by shuffling players between the two twelve year-old teams.  Some of the kids Bren's never played with before, so we'll see how that all shakes out.  As an added bonus, according to Mike, Coach Joe will be coaching our team this weekend.  He's loud and hilarious.  I always know there's a 0% chance of practice being boring when it's run by Joe.  For instance, he doesn't know any of the kids' names.  One time, during a game, he yelled "Hey!  You, in the blue shorts!"  Look at this picture, and tell me what you think might be ambiguous about that statement:

Well, I guess he's not talking to Kevin!

Also, our team manager told us about two more tournaments coming up over the next few months.  So, for advance planning purposes, here's the info:

Northern Ohio Cup - April 20-21, Lodi (outdoors!).  Should be fun.  And cold.  And probably wet.  Plan ahead, because this is the one last year where there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 teams, all playing on the same 30 fields.  It's a traffic nightmare, but pretty exciting for the kids.

Hudson Spring Kickoff - April 27-28.  Back-to-back weekend tournaments!  At least they're both local.  I don't know where it'll be, but I sure hope it's not the Hudson fields we've played at before.  They're a muddy mess in the spring, and there's no parking to speak of. 

Sometimes I wonder which extraccurricular activity makes Brendan tougher:  Soccer or Boy Scouts?  It's kind of a toss-up.

Anyway, I think that we're pretty much done with regular season play until early/mid April.  I think all of our regular season indoor games are over.  Just this one last tournament, and then the two spring tournaments start!  And do you know what comes after Spring ends?  An entire month of no soccer in July.  It's going to be heavenly.

Also as general points of interest, Canton United has a new website:

http://cantonunited.org/

Also, they just recently got a nice write-up in the Canton Repository:

http://www.cantonrep.com/sports/x1959350149/Canton-United-taking-soccer-to-another-level

Soccer - This week and Tournament next week

This weekend (3/2), Brendan has a game at Lodi on Sunday at 8:00 a.m., vs. Samba.

The following weekend (3/9-3/10), he has a tournament up in Cleveland.  The schedule is as follows:


Cleveland Indoor Classic 2013

Saturday, March 9, 2013

3:10 p.m. - CSU 3 - vs. Cleveland Select
6:40 p.m. - CSU 3 - vs AC Premier
8:25 p.m. - CSU 2 - vs. Internationals

No games on Sunday.

If anyone is interested in attending, it's located at Krenzler Field on the CSU campus in downtown Cleveland.

1.  The field doesn't really seem to have an actual address, but it's located at the corner of Chester Ave. and E 19th St., Cleveland, OH, 44146, for navigational purposes.

2.  It's in the ghetto.  Last year a ton of people got their cars broken into, and we were warned repeatedly about calling security to walk to and from your vehicle, and where the campus police jurisdiction started and ended.  [Nice, huh?  Is there really not a single safe soccer facility anywhere in Northeast Ohio that we could've held this thing, CASA?] There's a parking deck catty-corner from the field where we parked last year.  I think it was under $10 for the whole day, and we didn't have any problems.  Most of the people whose windows were smashed out had been parked on the street. 

3.  It's a plastic inflatable dome erected over a live field.  I think they do it each winter.  It's dry inside, and not super windy (as long as you stay away from the fans inflating the thing), but it's COLD!  Last year all the boys wore long pants and hats while they played.  We layered with regular clothes, sweatshirts, and then winter coats, and were comfortable most of the time.  During long down periods of sitting, sometimes I used a  lap blanket.

4.  Bring a bag chair.  There are no bleachers.  As I explained above, it's an inflatable dome erected over top of an ordinary field.  They divide it up into four or six smaller fields for the tournament, and there are only about three feet of buffer on each side for spectators to cram in.  You can stand, but last year we were there from 6:45 am to 3pm, and the ground is definitely too cold to sit on.

5.  Bring snacks.  They actually had a pretty nice concession setup with drinks and snacks.  I can't remember if they had any hot food, but I think not.  But again, it's a long day, and you can only have so many bags of chips.  During a break we went around the corner to a Subway for lunch, but given that all of our games are going to be near/after dark, and the aforementioned neighborhood problems, I don't think that's going to happen this time. 

Fall Soccer Schedule

So, this year our soccer organization (Canton United Soccer Club) has created a Junior Academy for little guys like Nate.  It's an instructional team, so they won't be playing any competitive games, but I imagine they'll do something similar to the Y-league where they spent half of their weekly practices learning skills and the other half doing scrimmages against one another.  So, if you're interested in attending, that will take place on Wednesdays from 6-7:15 at the Macedonian Orthodox Church on Massillon Rd., just north of the airport.  This club is a little particular about parents not being close to the practice fields during practice, but it might be different for the Junior Academy.

In other news, we have a game schedule for Brendan!  All games at Lodi outdoor fields, unless I tell you otherwise.

September 8, 2012 - vs. Whitecaps Teal - 10:15 am - Field 16

September 15, 2012 - Double header.  First game vs. Liberty FC Red - 3:15 pm - Field 20.  Second game vs. Ambassadors - 4:30 pm - Field 1.

September 29, 2012 - vs. CSA Impact Red - 2:00 pm - Field 6.

October 6, 2012 - vs. Everest - 2:00 pm - Field 16 (Note:  I don't think we'll be at this game, since it's the same day that my wonderful brother-in-law Robb will finally make the lovely Megan a new Mrs. Bickis :))

October 13, 2012 - vs. NEO - 12:45 pm - Field 22

October 20, 2012 - CASA Playoffs.  We'll pretty much be there all day.  Don't know the specific game schedule yet, and probably won't for a long time.