The Marine Harvest Upper Island Riptide has completed preparations for the 2016 British Columbia Soccer Association’s Provincial A-Cup championships.
Three Riptide teams (2002 boys, 2001 girls and 2000 girls) will compete July 7-10 in Burnaby. They have spent the past 10-weeks in the Riptide Spring Soccer Academy training together three times weekly.
The players have all benefitted from a relaxed yet demanding training environment that provided an increased number of touches on the ball and improved their technical level of play.
The final six weeks of preparation were focused on well-rounded team development, providing the teams with technical training, tactical training, sports psychology, physical training and goalkeeper training.
Each of the teams recently played several preparatory games, and even had the opportunity to participate in a one-day multi-disciplinary workshop. A highlight of the training for many, the workshop allowed the players to come together one final time to cover sports psychology, fitness testing, provincial tournament planning and to gain inspiration from Rob Fontaine, a former Olympian and local motivational speaker. All of the teams are fired up and ready to go!
The Riptide organization secured the Fortius Center for the accommodations and meals during the tournament. This world-class high performance facility is commonly used by the Canadian Women's National Soccer Teams for training and development. Use of the centre will help players to make the most of their experience by allowing them to stay on site and walk to and from games as a team.
Riptide technical director Shel Brodsgaard states, “Win, lose or draw we are pleased with the progress all of the players have demonstrated this past 10 weeks. The teams are tight.
“The training sessions are lively and competitive. The academy program has been a real asset for us leading into the provincials- improvement has been observed at all levels with respect to the individual players and teams,” he said.
The Marine Harvest Riptide continue to strive to provide their community with positive opportunities to grow, learn, train and develop. “We are all very excited about the opportunity to ‘trust in our training’ and see the teams succeed both on and off the field at the (Provincials),” Brodsgaard added.
All matches will be played at Burnaby Lake West. For up-to-date scores and the complete BC Soccer Provincial A Cup schedule visit: https://acup.bcsoccer.net/