A member of the Cochrane Wolf Pack had a chance to show off her soccer skills in front of scouts from across North America – and have a ton of fun doing it at the same time.
Last month, 14-year-old striker Jamie Rovere was invited to travel to British Columbia to play in the Vancouver Whitecaps FC Showcase. Known as western Canada’s largest soccer demonstration weekend. The Whitecaps-hosted tournament brings motivated and passionate female players to Newton Athletic Park in Surrey to play in front of more than 100 NCAA and CIS coaches and scouts, along with officials from girls elite programs.
The Whitecaps – a professional Canadian team in the western conference of Major League Soccer – also take advantage of the weekend to look for bright young ballers with potential to join their own squad as well.
The Calgary Blizzard Soccer Club took a contingent to the showcase and was looking to fill out its roster when it called Rovere – a Grade 8 student at Manachaban Middle School – to take up a spot on their team.
“They had a flight for her and everything. They made it really welcoming for her,” said Rovere’s dad John, who also coaches his daughter on the Wolf Pack.
Since Rovere is one year younger than most of her teammates on the Blizzard, John said he wasn’t sure how much time his daughter would actually see on the turf.
“I didn’t know how much she’d play. I (just) thought it would be a good experience,” he said. “She played a ton. They put her out there – the second game she played almost the entire game … I was pretty happy about that and so was she.”
Rovere said she played out of her normal position and was challenged by “how fast it was” – but impressed by the level of trust she had with the other girls, who were mostly strangers to her until she hit the pitch.
“It was a really good opportunity that I got to play with a higher age group and a higher tier,” she said, adding she brought home with her an enthusiasm to hone her skills even more that she hopes to carry through to her Wolf Pack team.
“I would like to improve in everything,” she said. “Basically a lot of game strategies – being able to be faster, passing the ball really clearly and stuff – shooting…”
John said while it was an incredible experience for his daughter to be seen by dozens of soccer scouts, Rovere is still young enough that the post-secondary portion of the Whitecaps weekend wasn’t at the forefront of his or his daughter’s mind.
“It’s not really a main focus of our play at this point. She’s in Grade 8 and she’s a little ways away from it,” he said. “Just let her keep playing and developing … You want to make sure she’s developed enough so when that time comes, she’s in a position to grab something if something’s available.”
The Blizzard squad was impressed by what they saw and invited Rovere to come to some of their practices. In the meantime, her Tier 2 team’s official outdoor season starts near the end of May – and the Cochrane player is happy to be positioned with her pack.
“We’re really strong,” she said, adding they won their first pre-season game. “We played really, really good … and hopefully we’ll continue to play like that throughout the rest of the season.”
