By Alan Chell, Little Bear organizer
The 15th annual Little Bear soccer tournament was a tremendous success.
Forty-four youth soccer teams from B.C. and Alberta enjoyed a great weekend of soccer and Revelstoke hospitality. Parents of the Revelstoke teams do a great job of looking after things like nets, corner flags, keeping results and providing information for our guests.
In addition to the soccer, we held a skills competition Saturday night that attracted a crowd of several hundred people to watch the players demonstrate their ball juggling ability and penalty shot taking skills. Congratulations to Ben McDonald of Revelstoke who had the best ball juggling time of all participants (he was in the U12 division!)
Saturday night also saw several hundred players and family members show up for the pool party. A big thank you to the City of Revelstoke for delaying their maintenance shut down so this extremely popular tournament event could take place. The city did a fantastic job with field preparation and tournament support.
Organizer Alan Chell expects 2013 will be even bigger and better as we will be able to utilize the two new school fields and this will enable us to accommodate even more teams and provide earlier Sunday playing times for all the teams who travel long distances annually for Little Bear.
This year saw four teams from Williams Lake, six from Calgary, seven from Canmore, six from Kootenay South and five from the Columbia Valley, in addition to teams from the Shuswap, Kamloops, Nelson and Golden.
We very much appreciate their support of our tournament.
Results are as follows:
U11 boys
Gold: Kamloops; Silver: Shuswap; Bronze: Revelstoke
U12 boys:
Gold: Canmore; Silver: Revelstoke; Bronze: Columbia Valley
U15 boys
Gold: Columbia Valley; Silver: Nelson; Bronze: Revelstoke
U18 boys
Gold: Shuswap; Silver: Kootenay South; Bronze: Canmore
U12 girls
Gold: Kamloops; Silver: Kootenay South; Bronze: Williams Lake
U13 girls
Gold: Calgary Saints; Silver: Williams Lake; Bronze: Kootenay South
U14 girls
Gold: Calgary Rangers; Silver: Calgary Spurs; Bronze: Kootenay South
U16 girls
Gold: Columbia Valley; Silver: Salmon Arm; Bronze: Canmore
U18 girls
Gold: Calgary; Silver: Williams Lake; Bronze: Kootenay South