Over the Edge ° October 24 2012

FAREWELL

GEOFF SARGENT
SPORTS EDITOR

With both soccer seasons
having concluded without
postseason play for the
men and women at UNBC,
the focus on the athletics
department undoubtedly
turns to basketball. Before
doing so, though, the
Timberwolves took’ time

TO DELL:

to recognize the soccer
program’s only fifth year
athlete, Danny Dell, as his
CIS eligibility ended with
the conclusion of the soccer
season. Dell was honoured
after UNBC’s last home
game of the season against
the University of the Fraser
Valley with a ed photograph
and a midfield ceremony,

PHOTO SOURCE LORENZO BONETTI

attended by friends and
family.

Dell, 25, hadn’t played
much soccer until he tried
out for the men’s team in
its infancy five years ago,
but through the tutelage
and development from head
coaches Sonny Pawar and
Alan Alderson, Dell was able
to transfer from a hockey

background into university-
level soccer. Striker was an
obvious fit. “I’m a centre
[on the ice],” he said. “A
goal scorer.”

Dell had only one goal on
the season when he was
interviewed, but it was
memorable. It came_ in
UNBC’s first game in CIS
competition, on the road in
Victoria. “They're defending
national champions - they
had the banner ceremony
before the game and drew
2,000 fans.” Fittingly, the
goal came as a result of
hard work, symbolizing the
Timberwolves’ lunchpail
attitude this season. “They
were passing it around their
defence and I stole it from
one of their defenders,” says
Dell. “I went right in and
scored just before halftime.”
Unfortunately, the T’Wolves
went on to lose that game,
and all but one of the
others this season, as the
team moved from CCAA
to CIS play with a 1-13
record. Dell remembers
the positives, listing the
2010 season’s two playoff
wins as his fondest team
memory. UNBC_ defeated
Capilano in the first round
before squaring off against

DANNY PLAYS FINAL GAME

the nationally #1-ranked
Douglas College Royals, and
it was UNBC who emerged
victorious: “We beat them
2-1,” Dell said. “It was a
great weekend.”

While Dell plans to move
down the’ highway _ back
to Burns Lake after
his education at UNBC
concludes, he will not be
a stranger to the program
here, nor to the game of
soccer that has now become
such a big part of his life. As
the soccer program at UNBC
grows and ages, players like
Dell, so influential to the
team’s early development,
can take a role in maturing
it to one successful on the
national stage.

[Editor’s Note: Danny
scored a second goal this
season against Mount Royal
on Saturday. ]

CANADIAN SOCCER; NATIONAL PRIDE

GEOFF SARGENT
SPORTS EDITOR

Most UNBC students have yet
to see Canada play a single
match in the World Cup Finals.
Canada’s national team has
qualified to soccer's grandest
stage only once (in 1986, where
they lost to France, Hungary,
and the Soviet Union without
scoring a_ single goal), yet
recently the tide seemed to be
changing. Qualification for the
2014 World Cup held in Brazil
has been underway for over
a year, and Canada had been
performing admirably - easily
breezing past Puerto Rico, St.
Kitts and St. Lucia in the first
of three stages last fall, and
starting their second stage up
spectacularly with a road victory
over Cuba in Havana. After a
second win over Cuba at home,

a draw against Honduras, and a
split of two games with Panama,
Canada found themselves a draw
or win away from the final stage
of World Cup qualifications - a
group of six teams, colloquially
known as “The Hex” - where
three guaranteed tickets to
Brazil were stamped, and a
fourth just a win (against New
Zealand) away from joining the
party.

Canadian hopes were high going
into the game, and why not?
Our national team had heavily
outplayed Honduras in Toronto,
and by all accounts only a
lack of finishing prevented the
team from scoring on multiple
chances. The first game against
the Hondurans ended in a 0-0
draw in Toronto, and the same
result repeated in San Pedro
Sula would see Canada through.
Head Coach Stephen Hart
was widely quoted on arrival
in Honduras saying “the most
dangerous thing you can tell a
team is they need a draw,” so
clearly the coaching staff had
the team’s best mindset planned
out. The team would attack, the
team would defend, and the
team would advance.

But then came the kickoff.

It began well enough for
Canada - in the second minute
a cross into the box found
striker Tosaint Ricketts with an
open net, a simple volley away
from silencing the boisterous

Honduran home crowd. Ricketts
couldn’t control the pass,
though, and the chance was
defused. The wheels fell off
shortly thereafter.
Honduras came _ in
and the Canadians were
overmatched. The defence
remained pedestrian as
attack after attack was feebly
defended or not defended at
all. Thirty minutes later, it was
over -— the scoreboard may
only have ticked 34 minutes
off a 90 minute clock, but it
also read Honduras 4, Canada
0. After another excruciating,
embarrassing hour of Canadian
soccer, the game _ mercifully
ended, 8-1. Suddenly, the best
Canadian side in years was once
again in the same failed heap as
the others: humiliated by a tiny
yet passionate Central American
nation, reduced to World Cup
spectators.

Media and fans will move on
quickly - at halftime of the
game, Sportsnet was already
plugging future broadcasts
of England’s own World Cup
qualification bid — and herein lies
the problem with the state of the
game in Canada. Compare the
scene in our country to that of
Honduras: rather unluckily, the
game against Canada fell one
day after a Honduran national
holiday, but the country’s
administration was nonplussed
- they simply added an extra
day to their holiday, ensuring
most of the country had the

waves,

day off work and was able to
watch their national team play.
Conversely, we host matches
against Jamaica in Toronto
that feature just as many
people cheering against the
country they live in as there are
supporting our own. The World
Cup is the premier sporting
event worldwide, but only those
following the progress of our
qualifications religiously —_ for
the past year would even have
known about our biggest game
in decades more than a day or
so in advance.

Watching Canada _ concede
goal after goal after goal to
Honduras, ending a World Cup
dream I thought would come
true for the first time in my
life, the prevailing emotion
was disappointment. While our
players, especially on defence,
showed an incredible lack of
effort when it mattered most,
the disappointment wasn’t truly
directed at them - it was at the
state of soccer in Canada. If it
was our supporters gathered en
masse outside a visiting team’s
hotel the night before a game,
making enough noise to prevent
them from sleeping; if it was us
cheering passionately for the
country we live in, and not for
the country our grandparents
grew up in; if the game that
could have sent us to Brazil
was an event, even if only on
Facebook, I have to believe it
could have ended differently.

RS
canadawest
Standings
Men's Soccer
Pacific Division
11-0-1 UBC
9-1-2 Trinity Western
5-5-2 UVic
3-5-4 Fraser Valley
1-13-0 UNBC
Prairie Division
7-2-4 Alberta
6-4-3 Calgary
5-5-3 Saskatchewan
4-4-5 Lethbridge
4-8-1 Mount Royal
1-9-3 Winnipeg
Women’s Soccer
11-1-0 Trinity Western
9-2-1 UVic
8-2-2 UBC
8-3-3 Regina
8-4-0 Saskatchewan
7-2-3 Alberta
6-5-1 Fraser Valley
4-7-1 Manitoba
3-6-3 Calgary
1-7-4 Mount Royal
1-9-2 Lethbridge
1-10-1 Winnipeg
0-9-3 UNBC