Brian Bruckman’s Blue team won the 2024 edition of the Smoke and Sow Co-Ed soccer tournament.

The event, also known as the Fast and the Furious tournament, took place April 19-20 at the Canada Games Centre in Whitehorse.

Tourney games consist of two eight-minute halves, hence the Fast and Furious title.

Teams played a round-robin for seeding, then played playoffs after being split into top and bottom divisions.

The final games Saturday saw the Red team win the third/fourth place game, as well as Bruckman’s buccaneers, with their pirate theme, win the big prize.

The Star spoke with Justin Carre after their 4-1 victory over the White team.

“We played in this game pretty much how we did in the playoffs. We compacted the field, we played well, we played possession football, let the ball do the work and finished. That final pass was a good pass usually, which allowed us to score the goals.”

The Red team went 5-1 in the round-robin. They had a drop-off at the end of the round-robin and in the semifinal game, but picked it up again at the end.

According to Carre, they played a “horrible game collectively” in the semifinal against Blue.

“We couldn’t put our foot on the ball and we couldn’t dictate play. The other team, they did really well, though and they pressured us. They have some young players as well, which I think hurried us and harried us.”

Carre said, “If that was the only (bad) game, we had a good tournament.”

He added, “Its been a great tournament. Thank you to everybody who’s put it together. It’s been hugely enjoyable.”

In the final, featuring Bruckman’s Blue against the F.H. Collins Yellow team, Alejandro Pulido broke the ice for Blue with about 2:45 left in the first half to make it 1-0 Blue. They added another goal to make it 2-0 at the end of the half.

Yellow came back to cut Blue’s lead in half with 6:02 left in the second half, with Stephen Doyle sending it home.

Blue held on, though, to claim the championship with a 2-1 victory.

Blue skipper Bruckman said “It was an amazing team effort. Right from the beginning, we sent emails out, saying our goals: ‘have fun, play as a team,’ we wanted equal distribution and that was what we followed through with.”

Bruckman said the key to the win was “sharing, caring.

“In terms of strategy, it was all about getting on quick, playing hard, getting off so your teammate could do it next and keeping the intensity up.”

Bruckman said they were tweaking that strategy through the tournament and it was very effective.

When asked what he thought of the final, Brickman replied, “Wonderful. It was a good game. Hard-fought. Ironically, we played the same team the very first game and then they made some adjustments in players as well and now we got to play their best versus our best and it was good.”

Bruckman added, “I’m really thankful to the boys for setting this up. We have Andy (Todd) and we have Danny (Macdonald, also the super-sub of the tournament for both the Green and Black teams).

“You see in the stands people are watching all day and having fun and camaraderie. I didn’t know half my team and here you are, you instantly make friends. I think that’s special. I think it’s special to the smaller town of Whitehorse as well, but I think just sharing sport, sharing the team spirit, and I love that part.”