Quest for the Cup

It's a great time of year to be a sports fan. The Chicago Blackhawks just won their first Stanley Cup in 49 years, the Celtics are battling the Lakers in the NBA finals, the baseball season is in full swing and the World Cup is about to begin. I live-Tweeted the hell out of that Cup-clinching win last night, so I'm not going to get into it here, but I did want to talk about soccer.

Soccer, or football to the rest of the world, has never been able to truly catch on in a big way in the U.S. And yet every four years, the World Cup takes place and garners at least some attention Stateside. I'm not really sure why it hasn't caught on here. I hear folks argue that it's boring and low-scoring, and yet the same people are perfectly willing to spend three hours watching a baseball game or a golf tournament (I love both those sports, but you see what I mean). Seems to me there's just an inherent mistrust of anything that's really popular in Europe. Whatever the case, ESPN is going all out with its World Cup coverage and the USA-England game on Saturday will likely be the most-watched soccer game in American history.

My relationship with soccer goes back to my days as a yute in the suburbs of Toronto. I started playing organized soccer in fifth grade when my parents signed me up for an indoor soccer team. Before that, I would play in pickup games that would take place at Douglas Park in Pickering, the town I lived in. The indoor league held its games in a gym in the town community center, using a softer ball on a regular gym surface.

The real reason my parents pushed me towards soccer was because I wanted to play hockey and they didn't want me to. Many of my friends were playing in organized leagues and my parents agreed to send me and my little brother to hockey school, which was the introductory level for kids. I was 8 and my brother was 4; my parents bought us full equipment and took us every Saturday to Don Beer Arena. So I figured the following year, I'd be playing in the local pee wee hockey league, which was the next level. But no, my parents were dead set against it. They said they didn't want me to get hurt, but I think they didn't want to drive me to 5 a.m. practices and the like. I even went so far as to have some of my buddies who played come over to the house to talk about how it wasn't a hassle and how they'd give me rides on occasion, but my parents wouldn't budge. It pissed me off to no end; still bothers me. My parents every so often would just make these edicts that made no sense whatsoever. Why buy all that equipment and then tell me I couldn't play? It was just cruel.

But they didn't have a problem with me playing soccer, hence the indoor league. A few years later, I started playing "house league" soccer, which was essentially a league run by the town rec department. I was a scrawny little puke back then and didn't have much of a shot, so they pretty much always put me at fullback. I played two years, including one year when my dad's union sponsored our team. It was about as involved as my dad ever got in my sports career. Our name was really long, something like the "Ontario Hydro CUPE Union Local 513"; it was 1980, so I don't remember the exact name, but it was sure unwieldy. I used to ride my bike about 10 miles to practice, do the practice, and then ride home. I don't remember ever being sore, either. After we moved to Richland, Washington, in late '81, I didn't play soccer again for two years because there was no organized soccer (or hockey) at my school at the time. I remember we played soccer a few times in gym class and I dominated, scoring a bunch of goals. But that was all the soccer I'd play for a while.

When we moved to New Hampshire, I ended up going out for the soccer team at my new high school. I was a junior, but I hadn't played in a few years, so the coach put me on the JV squad my first year. I was still scrawny and did my best, but I only scored one goal that year. Senior year, I was on the varsity. However, the coach didn't put me in much, so I was essentially a well-conditioned benchwarmer. We were a small school and didn't have a huge talent pool, but we were in good shape because he ran us into the ground.

I played some intramural soccer, outdoor and indoor, at UNH, but it wasn't until a few years after graduation that I started playing again. It was 1992 and I was at the Peabody Times when my editor decided to put an indoor team together at Soccer Etc. in Beverly. I had a blast and ended up playing for the next 10 years, first in Beverly and then at the Topsfield Fairgrounds. With a lot of playing time, I actually became a better player than I was in high school. I actually scored a shootout goal that won us the championship one session. And afterwards, we would go to a nearby bar and close the place. When I turned 30, I started playing in an over-30 outdoor league with a lot of the guys from my indoor team. It was a traveling team, so my Sundays would be full of driving all over the area for a few years. It was the combination of Hannah's birth and training for my first marathon that finally got me to quit, in addition to the hassle of all the travel. I also eventually stopped playing indoor, which was a lot of fun.

Now my connection to the game is primarily through the girls, who both play soccer. I've coached both Hannah and Lily. It has been fun to watch Hannah especially really enjoy playing outdoor and indoor soccer; Lily's in a kindergarten soccer program and is having fun for the most part.

Despite that history, I've never really gotten into watching much soccer on TV, except for the World Cup. I've followed the New England Revolution over the years from a distance, but have never really gotten into the team. It's not that I don't like watching it, but I just haven't had the attachment to a particular team. As a kid, I rooted for the Toronto Blizzard in the NASL, back in the days when Pele played for the New York Cosmos. But this World Cup feels different. There seems to be a palpable buzz built up this time around. I'm really looking forward to it.

And someday when I have more time, I hope to get back to playing soccer as well. Although I must say I really like watching my girls play. I hope they stick with it as they get older. It truly is a great game to watch and play.



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