Whitehorse native Joe Hanson is the first Yukoner to sign a professional soccer contract.

Hanson, 18, signed a contract with the MLS’s Vancouver Whitecaps to play with their FC2 team in the new MLS Next Pro league.

MLS Next Pro is a men’s professional soccer league in the United States and Canada.

It will launch in 2022 with 21 teams – 20 of which are affiliated with MLS clubs and the independent Rochester New York FC.

The Next Pro league is mostly under-23, but will feature players from the big teams as well.

Hanson said it feels pretty good to sign his first pro contract.

“I don’t want to say a relief to get it done, but it’s exciting. At the same time it also just feels good to have it done and be a part of professional football.”

Hanson has been waiting for this for a long time.

“Yeah, definitely.”

Hanson has taken a long road to get to this point in his soccer journey.

“It’s been a long journey, but ... in most recent years, it’s been really big for me to be at the Whitecaps. This is my third year with the club, so with the Whitecaps I’ve really been able to take my game to the next level and develop as a player. So I think that’s been extremely helpful for me to get to this point and to be playing at this level now.”

Hanson explained what has enabled him to take that big step.

“I’ve become a more mature player ... mentally, I’ve become stronger and have become more confident in myself and learned to believe in myself more than maybe I used to. When I was younger and a little less mature I would dwell on mistakes more and now I’m just better mentally and able to handle the adversity of the world of being an athlete.”

Hanson has been keeping busy prior to the start of the inaugural first Next Pro season.

“We’ve been playing a few pre-season games against the first team, the last month or so and then played against our first MLS Next Pro competition and we played against Seattle’s reserve team on Saturday last weekend, play against two more CPL teams this weekend and next weekend and then on March 26 we play our first league game in Houston.”

The young soccer phenom said that the pre-season is going pretty good.

“We’re still pre-season, so it’s still a bit of a process to figure out lineups and to really establish our team and to come together. We have quite a few new players and players of different ages, so we’re working on coming together as a team and really getting to know the system that we’re going to be playing.”

Hanson has found that playing at this level requires adjusting his game.

“It’s definitely very fast and the first thing I notice and the main thing I’ve found to be an adjustment is the little room for error and the number of mistakes you can make is very few at this level.

“I find if you make a mistake, you pay for it very quickly.”

As for his goals (no pun intended) for the season, “obviously, scoring goals is one of my goals, but in general is probably just to increase my role with the team and play a vital role with the team and to be a consistent starter and player ... and also to get some looks from the first team and hopefully get the chance to play with them a little bit more,” explained the young striker.

Hanson thinks his prospects for starting are pretty good.

It’s a long season and we have games every week, so obviously, I won’t be able to start every week. Nobody will, because it’s hard on the body to be playing every week, week in and week out. So obviously, that’s not quite possible. But I think I’ll be a pretty regular player with the team.”

“The league we’re in is for the reserve teams to develop players to get in to the first team, so it’s more about development at this stage right now.”

Hanson has a few future goals in mind.

“My goal is to break in with the first team. That’s high on my list, but I’m also open to other opportunities, maybe, in Europe. I’ve always wanted to play in Europe. But also to get the chance to play for Canada as well is high on my list.”

According to Hanson, the under-20 Canadian National team is just starting to form, as there is an Under-20 World Cup in Indonesia in 2023 and qualifiers are coming up soon.

“I’m hoping that I’m able to maybe get a chance with the under-20 national team this summer,” he stated.

Needless to say, Hanson is impressed with Team Canada’s success in World Cup qualifying.

“It’s amazing,” said Hanson.

“It’s huge for the country because it’s creating more of a soccer culture in the country and a lot of people are starting to get behind that team and really getting interested in soccer, so it’s great.”

Hanson said it’s inspiring to see the team have that kind of success.

“Oh, very much. Yeah. It’s huge to see the national team have some success because it almost makes young players like myself take more pride in being a Canadian player, whereas it used to kind of be like ‘oh, you’re from Canada, that’s not that good’, but now we’re actually quite a good team.”

“I’ve always wanted to play for Team Canada. I could get my American passport as well, so when I was younger, I used to joke about saying I’d play for the U.S., because they were better, but now Canada’s better than the U.S., so it definitely kind of helps,” he added.

Hanson thinks he can be an inspiration to young Yukoners hoping to follow in his footsteps.

“Yeah, definitely. That’s kind of always been my goal – to be the first professional player from the Yukon and maybe the territories. I’m not really too sure about that, but I’ve always wanted to be able to do that and it’s pretty cool to be the first, too, because I feel like there are lots of players that have wanted to and do still want to play professional soccer, so it can (be done), coming from the Yukon. The opportunities that we get are quite a bit less than players in big centres, so I’m excited to be able to do this, and hopefully inspire a lot more young players coming up, cause now they can see that it’s actually possible to do it.”