Once known only as a summer sport, soccer has become a year-round activity over the years.
Indoor soccer leagues take place on turf fields in domes and sports facilities throughout Ontario – and other wintery areas in North America.
This winter, for the first time, a Muskoka United FC (MUFC) competitive team is playing in the Provincial Indoor Soccer League (PISL) – and doing quite well. With 8 wins, 2 losses and no ties on the year, the team has 24 points and is tied with Jarvis for second place.
Playing in the PISL’s 6 v 6 division (each team fields five players and a goalie), MUFC has 12 of their 18 players from the summer roster. Normally, this age group plays on full-fields with 11 players against 11, so it’s been a bit of an adjustment.
Lucas Hills, the team’s leading scorer and fourth in the league with 11 goals, describes the difference.
“It’s more challenging because it’s not too big of a space and we have to be fast on our feet and move the ball quickly,” he says.
Aiden Smith, who has contributed two goals and a lot of assists, says this fast pace is helping the team with their footwork and touch on the ball.
“Your first touch has to be really good,” explains Smith. “Also, your feet have to be quick because these games move really fast.”
Made up of players born in 2008 and 2009, the U17 MUFC team is using these games as preparation for the upcoming spring Ontario Soccer I-Model Qualifying campaign. That competition is a step up from the Huronia District Soccer League (HDSL) they played in last year.
“We’re playing a couple of I-model teams that we’ll be playing in the spring,” says Dante Occhiuzzi, the team’s second-leading scorer and eighth in the league. “It’s good because we’re getting to see some of our competition, which means we’ll be more prepared.”
Coach Brendan Rasmussen explains this is part of why they chose to enter an indoor team: keeping up competitive levels and hitting the ground running in the spring.
“We wanted to keep playing year-round and keep developing skills with the goal ultimately of competing in a higher level (in the spring),” he says. “We needed to keep up with the teams that are training in domes for the winter.”
The team trains in school gyms during the winter with fitness training at a studio weekly as well. Now, a handful of the boys are getting time competing on the turf field twice or three times each month since November. Most of their games are played at the Hangar in Toronto, near Downsview Park with a handful taking place at the Woodbridge Soccer Dome.
It’s something that will be a huge benefit says Rasmussen and MUFC President Cathy Janke. They both hope more MUFC teams will join the PISL in future years.
“Competing in the winter allows players to keep their fitness up and improve on their ball-handling skills,” says Janke. “The ball runs differently on turf; the game is much faster paced and requires more control. By playing indoors in a gym or on turf during the winter, the players are ready to hit the fields as soon as the snow is gone and are playing as a team already while other teams who have not had this opportunity are still getting to know each other.”
A few years ago, under a different coaching staff, these boys had a very tough campaign and finished near the bottom of the I-Model standings.
“As we know, it’s going to be a tougher challenge going into it,” says Rasmussen about the I-Model qualifying. “The first time, I don’t think (they knew) about the tough level of competition you’re going to play in the qualifying rounds. We’re aware of that. We can manage those expectations.”
The team won a league-cup double last season, being crowned Champions of the HDSL U16 division as well as winning the HDSL Cup competition for their age group.
Now, the competition takes a big step up in overall level of play. Managing that will mean relying on some experience from the winter and some from last summer.
“We were fortunate to see some of those teams in our tournaments (last year),” says Rasmussen. “Last year, having the success in the HDSL, and having tournaments that we traveled to and often stayed together, we really built camaraderie between Huntsville and Bracebridge that they wanted to get by merging the two clubs.”
For the rest of the indoor season, MUFC will be aiming to win the rest of their games and take a run at finishing in the top two.
At the time of this writing, the boys are nine points behind first place Bradford. The good news is that there are eight games remaining and teams get three points for a win.
They still play Bradford and Jarvis (who they’re tied with in second place) once more each, giving MUFC an opportunity to knock their closest opponents down a notch.
Their coach is hoping to see them score a lot more to avoid all the close games they’ve been playing lately. Despite creating a lot of chances, they have been kept to low-scoring results. On the positive side, their team defense has been shining bright.
MUFC U17B have only allowed 15 goals in 10 games, good for the second-best goals against.
“We gotta capitalize on more of our chances,” says Rasmussen. “But we’re playing tight, tight, tight defensively. We’ve got one of the lowest goals against in the league.”
If they keep it up, they may just end up with a 2025 indoor title to go with their 2024 league and cup wins. Either way, they’ve laid the groundwork for fellow teams from MUFC to follow suit.
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