Haines Junction had a lot of success at the Northwestel Yukon Soccer Association Indoor Championships at the Canada Games Centre on the weekend, placing two teams on the podium.

Marten Sealy, one of the coordinators for the tourney, said the schedule began with a couple of games on Friday. And then Haines Junction arrived on Saturday morning and the rest of the games kicked off all day Saturday. Playoffs took place on Sunday and medals were handed out. The weekend finished off with jamboree games Sunday afternoon.

The Star spoke with Sealy as some of the final games were going on Sunday afternoon.

“All the medals are handed out, and what we have going on now, to cap off the weekend, is the U7 Jamboree. Everybody gets to play everybody once, and we’re currently in the final game.”

The jamboree involves a warmup, and then a series of mini-games.

“When the kids get older, they’ll enter more of a formal tournament format, but at the U7 and U9 level, we just make sure we maximize touches on the ball, so we play small-sided games (games with the goals on the side), just in thirds, break the field up, and have three games going on at a time, 10-minute games, and rotating constantly,” explained Sealy.

“They actually had a jamboree on Saturday as well, so this is their second jamboree of the weekend,” he added.

Sealy said the gold medal games were close.

“They were tight. It was great to see. We had some good results, and Haines Junction ended up on the podium in each category as well. It was really exciting to see the games being played.”

He said the tourney went well overall.

“It went smooth. Couldn’t have done it without the help of our refs, our coaches – I’m not the only coordinator, so the coordinators who gave me a hand – and of course our sponsors as well, Northwestel, who’ve been sponsoring these games for 36 years now.”

Cindy Cowie of Haines Junction, has been running the Haines Junction Football Club for the last 15 years.

Cowie was coaching and supervising five teams from Haines Junction. She said most families arrived early Saturday morning. “Every division has had at least three games, four games, so altogether there’s probably about 20 games,” related Cowie.

Cowie thought the weekend went pretty well.

“It’s pretty good. It’s an annual event. It’s so nice that with COVID finally kind of going down that we actually get to play again indoors. It’s really neat to see a lot of younger Haines Junction players playing, because we started out many years ago with just a couple of families and now ... I think we had 67 kids from Haines Junction participating.

“We have some kindergartens playing and then right up to – we had a couple overage players, so U15. But U13 was the oldest age grouping at this tournament.”

Cowie added “I’d just like to thank all the parents for taking the weekend to bring their kids in, spend the money on hotels and meals and stuff and making it happen, and the organizers have been fantastic.”

In the U11 Boys division, Whitehorse United Football Club 3 (WUFC) finished in first place in the round robin standings with 7 points, based on goal differential. WUFC 2 finished second, also with 7 points. WUFC 1 was third with 3 points.

The Haines Junction Eagles finished in fourth with no points.

However, things were a little different in the playoffs, especially for the Eagles. In Semi-final 1, the Eagles eked out a 2-1 win over WUFC 3. In the other semi-final, WUFC 2 edged WUFC 1 1-0.

In the bronze medal game, WUFC 1 downed WUFC 3 2-1.

In the gold medal game, WUFC 2 defeated the Eagles 1-0.

In the U13 Boys division, WUFC 1 finished first in the round robin with 10 points. WUFC 2 was second with 6 points, followed by WUFC 3 with one point.

In the gold medal game, WUFC 2 outscored WUFC 1 6-2.

There was no bronze medal game since only three teams participated in the division.

In the U13 Girls division, Haines Junction Eagles dominated the round robin, finishing in first place with 12 points, winning all four games. WUFC 1 finished in second place with 3 points, followed by WUFC 3 with three points. WUFC 1 finished second due to goal differential and played the Eagles in the gold medal game. The Eagles again dominated the scoreboard, triumphing 4-0 to take the title.