This week, I flew out to Saint John, New Brunswick to speak at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association mens soccer championships. Wholesale Stitched Jerseys . There are eight teams from across the country contesting the nationals, with games taking place from Wednesday to Saturday. You can watch the action live by clicking this link. While I was in Saint John, I also had the chance to speak to coaches and volunteers from the Fundy Soccer Association. We often focus our attention on the top of the pyramid in Canadian soccer - professional teams in MLS or our mens and womens national teams. While many fans are keen to follow the stories at the highest level of the game, there are also some great stories to tell about the people who are the real lifeblood of the game in Canada - the volunteers who run grassroots clubs. The Fundy Soccer Association is a great example. Their organization is full of volunteer administrators, referees and coaches, all trying their hardest to give the kids in their community a great experience with the game of soccer. It isnt about developing professional or national team players for them (although doing so would be icing on the cake); it is about ensuring that every child that comes into their club falls in love with the game, has fun, and stays involved in soccer for the rest of their life. It is about teaching them life lessons through the game of soccer. They are implementing the principles of long-term player development (LTPD) at their club because they understand the reasoning and research behind it. It isnt always an easy sell - there are parents that reject small-sided games and age-appropriate competition because it "doesnt look like real soccer" - but they continue to preach the gospel of LTPD in the hopes that it will soon become the norm. What organizations like Fundy need more than anything, is support. There are two major areas where that support would make a major difference - the first being coach education. When a club is reliant upon volunteer coaches (the vast majority of non-profit grassroots clubs in Canada would not exist if not for volunteer coaches), attracting and retaining coaches is paramount. That is very difficult to do when the cost of training and certifying those coaches is taken into consideration. It is one thing to ask a parent or volunteer to give up their time for their club. It is quite another to then ask them to pay for the privilege. While many clubs across the country pick up the cost of coach education (which they offset through higher registration fees or hard-earned sponsorship money that needs to be generated year after year), many of them cannot. In those situations, the cost of coach education is passed on to the volunteer coach - making it even more difficult to attract and retain coaches. Ive said it before (and Im sure Ill be saying it again in the future) but our governing bodies need to find revenue sources that completely offset the cost of coach education. Making coach education free to volunteer coaches across the country removes a massive barrier to grassroots coach education, making it far easier for organizations like Fundy to develop coaches. The second area that requires support is curriculum. Volunteer coaches often find themselves rushing home from work, collecting their kids and dashing off to practice. They keep a bag of balls, their boots and assorted coaching equipment in their cars, because they are out on the field three or sometimes four nights a week. They simply dont have time to sit down on their computers after work to look for training ideas on the internet. Shouldnt it be easier than that? Shouldnt those volunteer coaches have a document that they can use, a blueprint for the development of young soccer players they can refer to when stretched for time? Of course they should. And thats where a national curriculum comes into play. That we dont have one is a problem that the CSA needs to rectify immediately. Work is being done on that right now, but until such time as we have our own national curriculum, volunteer coaches across the country will be left to fend for themselves. The Fundy Soccer Association and those like it that exist across the country deserve better than that. Cheap Jerseys From China . - Jason Day and Cameron Tringale shot an 8-under 64 on Friday in modified alternate-shot play to increase their lead to three strokes in the Franklin Templeton Shootout. China Jerseys . A receiver doesnt make the catch on a passing play and instantly motions to the ref – and everybody else – for a pass interference flag. https://www.wholesalejerseys2020.com/ . -- One shot came out of bottom of a cactus, the other from the base of a desert bush with rocks scattered around it.TORONTO – Troy Bodie has played for 11 different coaches since he left the junior ranks in Kelowna. Among them was Randy Carlyle for whom he suited up in Anaheim over the course of three seasons and more recently in his second stint in Toronto this fall. "Hes probably the most detailed coach Ive had," said Bodie of Carlyle, who will face his former team Tuesday for the first time since he was fired in Dec. 2011. The Ducks have won seven straight games. Carlyle may have softened somewhat in his transition to the Leafs, but his obsession with the details remains. Never was that more apparent than throughout an instructive hour-plus practice on Monday morning, this after his team dropped consecutive games for the first time all season, falling hard to the Blackhawks in Chicago on Saturday evening. As he is wont to do, Carlyle halted drills repeatedly when they werent performed properly, bellowing at his group to "play fast" and with more assertiveness and aggression than it had in the 3-1 loss to the defending champs. "More than other coaches Ive played for he is a stickler for details, probably more so at practice," said Joffrey Lupul who played for Carlyle during multiple stints in Anaheim and again in Toronto. "Hes not going to see something and overlook it." In one instance, the Leafs head coach stopped practice to highlight to 23-year-old Jake Gardiner that he move the puck up ice with greater urgency and prominence. He first demonstrated what he meant before chirping to the assembled players that he could do so and "Im old." Moments earlier during the same drill, he pointed to a specific position on the ice where he wanted his defender to be, moving him from an improper place tucked along the wall to a point two or three few feet away. "He wants a guy two feet to the right of where the guy is, hes going to stop practice and say Move two feet to the right" said Lupul. "Not in a negative way, just in a way that if you keep doing it over and over, guys pick up on it." "Hes not going to see something and overlook it." Known to be an obsessive and creative line-matcher – his efforts in freeing Phil Kessel from the grips of Zdeno Chara during the Leafs first round series with Boston last spring were quite impactful – Carlyles passion for details extends into games. "The one thing I really admire about Randy is he comes in after every period and hell have something to write up about what theyre doing instead of just coming in with a rah-rah speech or you guys are playing awful speech," said Bodie. "Hell have answers to the questions on the ice. "Hell draw things up and show us what needs to be done." His grip on every function of his teams operation extends off the ice as well, even in areas that might not be so obvious. Upon his arrival with the Leafs in March 2012, following the dismissal of Ron Willson, Carlyle ensured that the brief walkway between the home dressing room and Air Canada Centre ice surface be mopped and cleaned in between periods so as not to impact the quality of his players skates. Cheap NFL Jerseys China. No detail is too small. His reputation bestowed as much before he came to Toronto, Carlyles old-school ways helping the Ducks to their first Cup in 2007. "What I heard about him was, its going to be tough, hes a hard coach, hes tough" Carl Gunnarsson recalled. "Yeah, he is [tough]; practices are long, practices are tough, he demands a lot from the guys. But I think hes fair too. If we dont give 100 per cent we dont have a chance to win." It was for that reason that Carlyle stressed over his teams "loose" play in all three zones throughout a 6-1-0 start; he saw the underlying details of their game lacking and in need of a jump-start. Losses to Carolina and Chicago only served to underscore that point. "I think hes doing it for the sake of the team," Gunnarsson said. "Of course its tough, but youve got to see it the right way; hes doing it for you and not trying to be a dick about it." Though he hasnt changed in his rigidness for order, Carlyle has softened somewhat from his 7-year run with the Ducks. Hes ceded to giving his team the morning off on more than a few game-days early this season – at the request of his players no less. "Theres things that you learn and you take from your history or your experience, things that you did then that you might change," Carlyle said. Carlyle claimed, early in his Toronto tenure, to have learned from the experience Blues coach Ken Hitchcock spoke of in his return to the bench in St. Louis. "He tried to bring a positive attitude day in, day out, no matter what was happening outside of the rink or outside of the playing surface or what had happened the night before that he was going to take a positive approach and try to do that on a day-to-day basis," Carlyle said. And so it was on Monday morning that, two days after his team was thoroughly outplayed by the Blackhawks, Carlyle brought out the bright orange street hockey balls to open up practice, rather than grinding his group with a depressing skate. Order and instruction came later. "At times we feel that thats counter-productive," Carlyle said of hammering a message home with a bag-skate. "We have to change the mood of our group to a positive one." "Hes changed a little bit," said Lupul who had previously clashed with Carlyle in Anaheim. "More so in the day-to-day stuff, coming in chatting with guys and trying to have a bit more of a relationship with the players I think. Hes still a demanding coach and everyone knows whats expected from them – I dont think thats going to change anytime soon – but you can certainly see maybe a little softer [side] in his old age." The details notwithstanding. ' ' '