From the Black Hole

For episode 100 we welcome back Michael Findlay. Formerly with Canada Soccer in a number of roles, Michael is now doing some work for the Canadian Premier League.

We welcome back Tommy Wheeldon Jr who now adds GM and Head Coach of Cavalry FC to his list of titles. Of course, he is on to discuss the newly announced Calvalry FC, Calgary's entry into CanPL and the events that led to its establishment.

It’s been a long hiatus but we are finally back with Episode 98. I was joined by Derek Martin of Sports and Entertainment Atlantic to delve into the events that led to SEA pursuing a CanPL team, Derek’s personal conversion to soccer fandom, how a soccer team will enhance the urban landscape of downtown Halifax, and many other topics.

In Episode 97, Foothills TD Tommy Wheeldon Jr. joins us again to discuss all things Foothills, and a lot has happened. Foothills PDL went to the PDL final in 2016, the club established their UWS team, and they built a magnificent new indoor soccer facility, the first of its kind in Alberta. As usual, Tommy has a some great stories and gives his opinions on the importance of the upcoming Canadian Premier League.

On Episode 96 we have an exclusive podcast interview with Joe Belan who is leading the group who is looking to bring a Saskatchewan team to the Canadian Premier League. To say those of us in the province are excited about this is an understatement. Like the Canadian Premier League will change the landscape of Canadian soccer, so this team will change the soccer landscape in Saskatchewan. It's as surprising as it is exciting. Have a listen.

In episode 95 we were joined by Canada Soccer Deputy General Secretary Joe Guest. Joe take us through much of the behind the scenes game administration details involved with putting on National Team games and professional team games, as well as the decision making process about the past, present, and future of the Voyageurs Cup. We discussed how the competition has changed recently and how it might change with the addition of CanPL teams in (hopefully) the near future.

On our latest episode we welcome back Jerson to discuss all that has happened in Saskatoon futsal as well as his recent trip to Kingston to compete in the Canadian National Futsal Championship.

In Episode 93 we were joined by Colin Elmes and Will Cromack of TSS Academy and also of the new PDL team TSS Rovers. Colin and Will recognize many of the issues plaguing Canadian player development and have been working for years to address those issues. That labour continues with the first season of TSS Rovers.

It's been a busy week here at FTBH World Headquarters and we finish it off by chatting with James Covey and Andre Bourque who are working to establish Halifax Wanderers Supporters Group. This was another super fun conversation with excited soccer guys. With all the great stuff happening in places like Halifax, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Hamilton, away days are going to be brilliant in CanPL.

While the NASL and USL world was in disarray this off season, it was business as usual in the front office of FC Edmonton. And it now looks like staying the course and sticking to the message has things looking up for the team. Jay Ball joined us to discuss how.

In our latest episode we were joined by Levi Oakey and Adrian Martin of Grand River Union to discuss supporting in K-W and the prospects of a CanPL team.

We are back with another rambling discussion of reactions from the MLS playoffs, focusing on the tie between Toronto and Montreal, and then we slowly switch over to CanPL talk. However, at the end we spontaneously cooked up a way to wrap up 2016 and we need your input. If you are interested in contributing, please send us your Canadian soccer highlights and lowlights from 2016. Direct message us on Twitter or Facebook and we will try and include your contributions during our 2016 year-in-review episode. Thanks in advance for any contributions.

Yes, stuff. Jeff and I had not done a podcast together since sometime in August. So this episode turned into us simply trying to catch up on stuff supplemented by several discussions of Jeff and Cheryl's Ukrainian cooking. Lars once again is absent, this time enjoying a holiday in Dubai. Jerk.

We originally talked to Tino in July right before he was about to take his Canadian University Women's Futsal Team to Brazil for the University Futsal Championships. Now we are following up with him to see what his experience was like. ** A brief note - I recorded this interview using a method that I'd not yet tried and the sound quality left a lot to be desired. Despite my best editing attempts, the sound is still poor. Apologies for that.

In advance of the Canadian Men's National Team's two upcoming friendlies in Morocco, we were joined by interim head coach Michael Findlay to discuss the lessons learned from the previous World Cup Qualifying round and how those lessons will be applied as the team is in transition.

From the Black Hole, Soccer Podcast, Soccer Canada, CANMNT, CANWNT, Ottawa Fury FC, Toronto FC, Vancouver Whitecaps, Women's World Cup, Voyageurs Cup, CCL, CONCACAF, FC Edmonton, Supporter Culture, Canadian Premier League, Steven Sandor

When we look back at 2016, the Women's National Team's bronze medal at the Rio Olympics will be a massive story, not only because of the medal, but also because of the way it was won. This was no hold-on-by-your-fingernails-and-hope-to-score-a-late-winner performance, but a quality affair where the women looked full measure for their wins. It was exciting and, dare I say, gives fans hope for that the future is bright where previously it was easy to believe that our women were on their way into a dark and difficult rebuild. Luckily, work took me to Saskatoon so Jeff and I could sit down for another rambling recording (complete with Cheryl laugh-track). We spend the second half of the podcast discussing the women's performance while in the first half we refer to many other CanSoc stories that certainly didn't escape our notice, but that we haven't had time to give our full attention.

In Episode 83 we were joined by the OSA's Manager of Player Development, Bobby Lennox. Bobby's role with the OSA takes him throughout Ontario working with clubs and coaches to support grassroots player development.

For Episode 82 we were joined by Canadian Men's U20 head coach Rob Gale. We discussed the unfortunate cancelation of the recent U20 camp in Costa Rica due to a volcano, the many new faces coming into the U20s, player database, tracking and evaluation, and what lies ahead for the U20s. I think Rob convinced Jeff to become an optimist!

In today's episode we were joined by Saskatoon's Jerson Barandicah. To say Jerson is involved in a lot of Saskatoon's soccer scene would be an understatement. From coaching the U of S Women's Soccer Team to developing new futsal leagues, he seems to do it all.

In Episode 80 we sat down with Tino Fusco, born and raised in Regina, played CIS in Saskatoon, and now coaches with Mount Royal University in Calgary. Tino has endeavoured to create a Canadian university women's futsal team and take them to the FISU World University Futsal Championship in Brazil. When you hear about the hurdles he's overcoming to do this, you will have to agree that it is a very ambitious undertaking.

Wow. Just wow. The Canadian Men played two friendlies. The Canadian Women played two home friendlies in front of mostly full stadiums. Both the men's team and the women's team won games ON THE SAME DAY!! And if that's not enough, we've just watched the semi final of the 2016 Voyageurs Cup. So. Much. CanSoc.

No team? No league? No problem say the people in Hamilton supporters group Barton Street Battalion. In anticipation of a new soccer team in Hamilton in a new Canadian professional soccer league, James Hutton has gotten ahead of the curve by helping found Barton Street Battalion. There are many interesting parts to his and their story, but perhaps the most interesting, especially to those that call CanPL a fantasy, is the fact that they have already met with the prospective Hamilton team's ownership. BSB's story is an incredibly unique one on the Canadian soccer supporter landscape.

The CSA just had their AGM, Victor Montagliani was just acclaimed CSA president, and then quickly won the presidency of CONCACAF, so we convinced Clare and Squizz to join us to chat about the ever evolving trajectory of Canadian soccer. Enjoy!

We were very lucky to be able to sit down with a group of gentlemen who have established PDL squads in their communities when they got together for some pre-season friendlies in Winnipeg. All of them have their own motivation and purposes for having a PDL club at the top of their pyramids. Tony Colistro is the owner and founder of the Thunder Bay Chill. Eduardo Badescu is the founder and head coach of WSA Winnipeg. Karl Oram works with both Calgary Foothills and FC Edmonton coaching and doing video analysis. And no stranger to the podcast, Tommy Wheeldon is the TD of Calgary Foothills and the head coach of their PDL squad. We had a very fun conversation with a lot of joking around thrown in. Apologies for the amount of background noise on the recording. We hope it doesn't detract from what was said too much.

While Lars is away exploring the history of the American Civil War (I'm not kidding), Jeff and I had a free Sunday night, so we recorded this ramble-y thing. It was fun but I suspect it will be hard to follow. Regardless, you should give it a listen.

In Episode 74 we welcome back Percy Hoff, who first joined us as part of our 'Focus on SK' series. With years of experience in Saskatchewan soccer under his belt, Percy has a lot to say about where we need to go developmentally on the prairies and as a soccer nation.

Well on the good side, Lars has rejoined us for our latest episode. On the bad side, discussing the Men's National Team's losses to Mexico was on the agenda. Not much else to say there that we didn't include in the podcast so have a listen.

In Episode 72 we sit down for a feature interview with Canadian Men's National Team coach Michael Findlay. We discussed the current World Cup Qualifying campaign as well as items about the Men's National Team and CSA more broadly.

Here is our last instalment of our Focus on SK series and last, but not least, we are joined by Kevin Holness and Markus Reinkens, TDs of FC Regina. Kevin has joined us before but Markus has returned to Regina from the warmer climes of BC to work with Kevin on the recently formed FC Regina. They take us through the establishment and direction of the club and Kevin gives us a little blurb about the WCP Cup at the end.

Tommy Wheeldon Jr joins us again to look back on Foothills PDL inaugural year and discuss the many new developments at his constantly growing club.

We've had enough 'Focus on Sask' episodes now that I've officially lost count, and am also too lazy to go back and look it up. On today's episode we are joined by FIFA ranked official, Chantal Boudreau. Chantal has rocketed up the refereeing ladder attaining her FIFA level only 6 years after her first game as an ref. Her passion for the game drives her, and it is pretty exciting to have a Regina local involved in the game at such a high level.

We continue our focus on our home province with Percy Hoff of Astra Academy. Percy has been involved with soccer in Saskatoon and provincially for many years as discusses the difficulties facing the sport locally and the potential solutions.

Has there been a bigger year in Canadian soccer? I think a compelling case could be made that 2015 has been the biggest. Not only did Canada host the Women's World Cup, but there were tons of other notable events with clubs, national teams, and individual players. At times it was difficult to keep track of it all. Here at FTBH we see it is part of our approach to try and support and connect others who are supporting soccer in Canada, and this influenced our approach for the 2015 review. We invited people from across the country to participate by sending us a brief discussion of their 2015 Canadian soccer highlights and a look forward to 2016. The people we contacted ranged from Voyageur friends to coaches, writers, bloggers, and pundits. And what a response! From across the country we received over 20 contributions. Needless to say, we feel incredibly thankful that we have been able to meet and get to know so many great soccer folks and we not only admire them a great deal, but are fortunate to be able to count them as friends. There were a few challenges for this podcast. Keeping the sound even when everyone is recording from different platforms was a bit of a challenge, so I apologize for any inconsistencies. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy everyone's contributions and can feel their passion for soccer in Canada. Here is a list of the contributors in the order that they appear on the podcast. And of course, thanks very much to them all for taking the time. Kamal Hylton, Aaron Neilsen, Bobby McMahon, Zach Lawton, Simon Fudge, Carolyn Duthie, Adam Huber, Nathan Terlesky, Richard Wyatt, Jeff Paulus, Duncan Fletcher, Greyson Knutson, Gavin Day, Jeff Salisbury, Fred Jean-Francois, Tommy Wheeldon, James Hutton, Daniel Squizzato, Mark Hinkley, Steve Sandor, Jon Eden, Mark Dailey, Kevin Laramee, Kristin Knowles, Sam Gregory. (And as a side note, contributions were sent from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and London, England ... hopefully I didn't miss any there).

In part 5 we visit with Queen City United Soccer Club Technical Director, Hugh Dooley and the club's President, Chris Bailey.

In part 4 of our focus on Saskatchewan, we chat with Filipe Dos Santos. After recognizing a deficiency in the technical abilities of Saskatchewan players, Filipe decided to do something to address the issue. His solution was to establish Ginga Soccer Academy.

The focus on Saskatchewan continues with Regina's Josh Hartl. Josh is a local soccer coach and is also attempting to establish a Futsal league in Regina.

We are back with the second part of our focus on Saskatchewan with University of Regina Women's Soccer head coach Bob Maltman. Bob discusses a whole range of topics from his immigration to Canada from Scotland, the ins and outs of the university soccer program, and the state of the game in Canada. Bob is a great storyteller and provided a bunch of funny anecdotes along the way.

In our latest episode we are joined by Sam Gregory. Currently Sam has a podcast, website, and consultancy called Analytics_FC, but to us, Sam is also one of our Voyageur friends who we've attended a bunch of Canada games with. He's written for Red Nation and Sportsnet and now joins us to discuss xG maps for Canada's games in both the Gold Cup and recent World Cup qualifiers.

Canada played two qualifiers against Honduras and El Salvador over the past week, and we are here to break the games down. At least, we break the games down after spending far too much time talking about other things. Oh well.

It's part of the foundation of this podcast to poke fun at ourselves and where we are from, the so-called 'Black Hole of Soccer' i.e. the prairies. And although it may seem that there's not a lot going on, look closer and you'll find that you're so wrong. That's why we have decided to do a series on some of the things that are happening in our home province of Saskatchewan. The number of podcasts will be determined by how many people we can sweet-talk into joining us for a conversation and the timing of the podcasts will be determined largely by their schedules. First up is the Saskatchewan Soccer Association's Director of Soccer Operations, Dave Nutt. Dave updates us on the progress of a Prairie High Performance League, possible partnerships with neighbouring provinces and changes to players' developmental pathway in Saskatchewan.

We were very lucky to be visiting Winnipeg and have the chance to sit down with Canadian Men's U20 head coach Rob Gale. The interview is in two parts, the first of which we recorded over beers in Winnipeg and the second over Skype. Rob is a very engaging character and touched on many of the initiatives being undertaken by the CSA and his many experiences coaching and scouting Canadian youth.

The Ontario soccer landscape has dramatically changed over the last several years. Dino Rossi joins us to discuss two of Ontario's major initiatives, OPDL and League 1 Ontario.

In our latest episode we have the great fortune of welcoming Clare Rustad to the podcast. Clare leads us through her development as a player and soccer analyst and also discusses her views on the state of women's soccer development in Canada. As an added bonus, she scores all the points against Jeff with a flurry of zingers!

It wasn't the most confidence inspiring display, but our Canadian Men's Soccer Team is moving on to the next round of World Cup Qualifying after defeating Belize in a two-legged tie over the previous several days. Both Lars and Jeff are back to discuss the result and they are joined by Lee Kormish (Mad Bull) and Mike Crampton (Maestro) who add to a comprehensive reaction to these latest games.

On our latest episode we were lucky enough to spend some time with Orlando City SC assistant coach Mark Watson. Mark has a wealth of experience as a player in the former CSL, England, Sweden, and MLS, has coached with the Canadian National Teams, and has also been both a head coach and an assistant coach in MLS. He joined us to discuss his career as a coach and player, his views on developing Canadian coaches, his experience during Orlando City's inaugural season, and gives us some insight into MLS Rookie of the Year candidate, Canada's Cyle Larin.

From the Black Hole Episode 54: Canadian Pro-Team Mid-Season Check-In With all of the Canadian Women's and Men's national team soccer going on this summer, we have neglected the Canadian Pro Clubs so we felt it was time o check in on them. So we twisted the arms of several willing souls to join us on the podcast and talk about the clubs in their cities. All of our guests also contribute to various soccer media such as podcasts or blogs. Our guests were from East to West: Kevin Laramee - IMFC Kendra and Ryan Shannon - OFFC Ian Clarke - TFC Nathan Terlesky and Adam Huber - FCE Kasey Hunter - VWFC

What do you do when the Women's World Cup, PanAm Games and Gold Cup are over and World Cup Qualifying is on a break? Fill the gap in your soccer emptiness with podcasting of course! In this episode we welcome Bobby McMahon back to the podcast. Most people in the soccer world know Bobby from his time on Fox Soccer Report but he also has a great deal of expertise in Sports Event Management through his consulting business. In the aftermath of the Women's World Cup we thought it would be important to examine its success or failure as an event and Bobby has the perfect credentials to do so. As an added and timely bonus Bobby gives us his take on the prospects of a Canada-wide professional league.

Even though the summer of soccer is over for us at FTBH, and even though we have already dealt with many of the topics in Episode 51, it seemed appropriate, especially given the number of high profile competitions in Canada this year, that we give these a little more airtime. Enter a guy who never has a shortage of things to say on Canadian soccer topics, Daniel Squizzato. To the uninitiated it might seem strange to have as our longest single podcast (and it is coming in at a little over two hours) be filled primarily with one person talking. And it's true that Squizz is notoriously long-winded. However, there are few people in the Canadian soccer media landscape that combine the ability to synthesize an argument, the talent to write or speak in an intelligent yet accessible way, and the passion for the sport in this country quite like Squizz. Two hours but worth every second.

It's been quite the summer so far. Busy and exciting and sometimes painful. On the good side, we have had the densest concentration of Canadian team soccer games likely in Canada's history. On the bad side, being so busy trying to travel to these has made it very difficult to do any podcasting. But finally we have put together our 51st episode. It is a long rambling and crazy thing. Here is a list of the different topics we've attempted to discuss: 1) We discuss the Women's World Cup and its aftermath (although we really intend to do a more in depth treatment of this in the future). 2) We recorded a segment in the middle of the Canada vs Jamaica Gold Cup game at the Touchdown Pub in Hamilton. Joining us were Sam Gregory, James Hutton, Richard Wyatt, and Caroline Duthie. We also recorded while dejectedly walking toward the stadium in Hamilton hoping that the Canadian Women's PanAm team would be cathartic. 3) In the aftermath of the women's PanAm game versus Ecuador we had the great fortune of meeting Melsaide Tate (mother of Kadeisha Buchanan), Tina Lawrence (mother of Ashley Lawrence), and Mary Zadorsky (mother of Shelina Zadorsky) and they generously agreed to give their perspective on the game and their daughters' performances. 4) Grant Surridge poses serious questions about Daniel Squizzato followed by Mike Shwanke and Nicky Cottee discussing our Gold Cup prospects vs Costa Rica. 5) Finally Jeff and I summed up our thoughts on Canada's performance in the Gold Cup while waiting to fly back to Saskatchewan. It was a pretty busy few weeks. Hope you enjoy this rambling reliving of some of these experiences.