The fledgling Cochrane Soccer Club (CSC) is taking flight in its inaugural season in Calgary United (CUSA) and Calgary Women’s (CWSA) soccer leagues.
Introduced this season as an alternative to adult teams fielded by established Cochrane Rangers Soccer Club, CSC’s women’s team is booting down the doors in Calgary women’s soccer play this season. At 10-1-2 in CWSA Over-40 Tier 3 standings, CSC is at the top of the table. Yvette Koop is second in league scoring with 11 goals and Lynnesa Metz fifth with nine.
“Our lady’s team has lost only one game all season, and they have three games to go,” said CSC founder and president Dom Hickey. “They’re winning their division and they’re probably going win it overall.”
In CUSA Masters 3, CSC’s men are 5-7-2 for fifth place in the standings. Cochrane’s Stephen Tucker is second in league scoring with 14 goals.
One of the more encouraging signs for Hickey in his club’s first season of competition is player turnout.
“I was looking at it yesterday. For our men’s team, we never have to use a call-up player from a different team. All the other teams we’ve played have always had at least one call-up player because they’re short numbers. Whereas we’ve had 14-15 at every game,” HIckey said. “And with the ladies’ team we’ve had to use one call-up player just once, and that was it.”
From here, Hickey expects CSC to grow. Albeit one step at a time. The winter indoor soccer season will be spent focussing on skills and recruiting. He hopes to have four teams assembled under the CSC umbrella for next year’s summer outdoor season.
“Indoor, we’re not going to be entering any competitive team and we’re going to be based around doing friendlies and a regular practice session just to improve it because our men’s team next year will be two men’s teams. There’ll be an over-35 and an over-45. So it just gives us the winter to actually practice and get used to how we play,” he detailed. “The lady’s team will be two over-40 teams. At the minute, we’ve got enough for one-and-a-half teams, in effect. And we’ve got a little bit of recruitment going on. They’ve all said they would prefer to do a regular practice session and then play friendlies rather than doing competitive indoor for winter, which is where we’re going.”
The men’s outdoor season goes to mid-September and women’s to first week of September.
