Another Opportunity

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It was yet another opportunity for the City of Champions to strut it’s stuff on the world stage. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly doing cartwheels in expectation of the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Soccer Championship. Now, you couldn’t drag me away from the Commonwealth Stadium pitch. I’m not the only one that’s caught this fabulous football bug. Organizers said they would have been happy averaging around 10,000 fans a day. With the semi-finals and final still to be played, the average was close to double that with a whopping 24,595 showing up for Canada’s quarterfinal match against England. No doubt, it always helps when the home team, in this case, our Canadian girls, are doing well, but at this point that’s like saying Pele scored a few in his illustrious career. Team Canada has been a real treat to watch. They zipped through the round robin with wins over Denmark, Japan, and Nigeria, not allowing a single goal in their final two outings. Then came the quarterfinal match-up with jolly old England. The much shorter English gals put up a good fight but in the end, Canada, and captain Christine Sinclair were way too much. The final score, Canada 6 England 2. We as Canadians like to hang our hats on the fact that we’re the greatest hockey nation in the world. We’re proud to say that the greatest ever, Wayne Gretzky, is one of ours and even cut his teeth right here in Edmonton. Well, with all his scoring records, many of which will never be broken, Mr. Gretzky scored five goals in a game four times over his lengthy career. Christine Sinclair scored an amazing five goals in Canada’s win over England. Stop and think about this for a moment. Gretzky did it four times in a high scoring game like hockey, over 20 seasons. Sinclair did it in the usually low scoring game of soccer. It was amazing to watch, a thrill to be there. Sinclair was clearly the best player in the tournament, some say one of the best in the world, and led the tournament in scoring, before her five-goal game. Now that she has ten (with two games still to be played) Sinclair has scored more than some of the countries, England, Germany, Japan and Australia, just to name four. The Burnaby, B.C. native’s teammates and Coach Ian Bridge, say as good as she is on the pitch, she’s an even better leader off the field. Her teammates sometimes catch themselves stopping to watch her do her thing at practice. Canada could, and should, win this tournament. But even if they don’t, it’s already been a huge success for soccer, in our province and in our country. Thanks for bringing another exciting world-class event to our city, and thanks to Christine Sinclair and company for providing the rush. Ron Rimer