Yorkton Minor Soccer took advantage of some beautiful weather this past weekend to host the inaugural Yorkton Co-op Community Soccer Event at the Sacred Heart soccer and football fields on Saturday, May 30.
Over 250 soccer players from 20 teams and four communities took part in the one day event that included over 40 games as well as a skills competition in which competitors had to perform various soccer abilities in the hopes of winning prizes. “What we wanted to do was help promote soccer to people in the surrounding area,” Yorkton United technical director Mike Jakubiec told Yorkton This Week. “So what we did was we invited all of the surrounding communities to come down and take part in a free day of soccer here in Yorkton sponsored by Yorkton Co-op and hosted at Sacred Heart.
“There is a ton of soccer in Yorkton and the surrounding communities, so what we’re trying to do is bring everyone together and have an event that will show that soccer is strong in the area.”
One other reason for the event was to introduce the surrounding areas to the Yorkton United competitive soccer club in the hopes of possibly recruiting future players while developing connections with soccer teams from communities around the City of Yorkton. “It allows us to make connections with teams from around the area and work with them to help grow soccer in their communities,” said Jakubiec. “It might even bring in some competitive players to our club year round; players that come from surrounding communities that might not have known about Yorkton United, which will only help to build or grow soccer in the area.”
However Jakubiec mentioned that recruitment is only a secondary thing and that the main reason for the event was to simply provide the children with a positive soccer experience; something he believe was achieved. “It’s been a really good, positive experience with lots of positive feedback from players and coaches and it was a huge success,” said Jakubiec, continuing, “the kids had a great time and everything went well and we look forward to holding it again next year.”
