Due to the disruption of ferry service due to terminal upgrades, teams from Victoria scheduled to play in Powell River have postponed their games.
Vancouver Island Soccer League (VISL) has a clause to protect its players from overnighting so that they can get to work the next day. This clause is having a direct affect on Powell River Villa.
“There is something in the constitution of the league,” said Villa coach Chris McDonough, “that all teams must be home at night on the day of the game, so that is going to push a lot of our games into February.”
In addition to the cancellation of its game last Sunday, he said, “next weekend’s game against SFFC Active Earth Engineering is also postponed.”
While the constitution states that teams do not have to travel, Castaways FC bucked the trend and will honour its date at 1:30 pm on Saturday, February 1 at Timberlane Park.
“We’ve had to move the game from Sunday to Saturday to accommodate them,” said McDonough, “which is okay because they didn’t have to come.”
Before then, Villa has an away game against Juan de Fuca on Sunday, January 26. “We’ll run the ferry gauntlet and attempt to make that road trip,” he said.
A quick check of the reduced schedule reveals a 10 pm departure Saturday for the noon game Sunday, arriving back to Saltery Bay at about 9:30 pm.
He laughed when he was reminded that the constitution only seems to protect the island teams. “That’s for everyone but us. But that’s the price we pay for living in Powell River and we go that extra mile.”
Really, there aren’t a lot of choices if teams from Powell River want to be included in with the BC sporting community. “We’ll end up having a lot of games backloaded in March,” said McDonough. “When the ferry goes back to running between Saltery Bay and Comox, hopefully we’ll get a few more of our games in because I think teams will be able to get home by midnight.”
In the meantime, to stay sharp, the team had an exhibition game against Upper Island Riptide which has a few Powell River players on it, and they continue to practice.
In other news, the VISL All Star team was announced and Villa’s centre back Ben Elliot (five goals) and striker Jake Kenmuir (six goals) were recognized for their play.
Also the draw was announced for the George Pearkes Challenge and Villa has drawn SFFC Active Earth Engineering 3A in Victoria. If it wins that game, it draws the winner from a pair of Division 4 teams and if it wins that, it will face Hellas FC from Division 3A.
This time of year is always a busy one for VISL but certainly the postponement of some games means that Villa will be extremely pressed to complete its regular and cup schedules.
“We’ve got a couple of weeks off here,” said McDonough, “then we’re going to be full tilt probably until the end, whenever that might be.”
