Gold in Surrey. And a Welcome to the Fall Classic.
BV United went to Surrey last weekend and came home as International Cup champions.
The Premier League International Cup is one of the largest youth tournaments in Western Canada — teams from across British Columbia, from the rest of the country, and from the United States. Bulkley Valley’s U17 boys beat all of them. They won the final 7–2.
Congratulations to the players, to the coaches who got them there, and to the parents who drove, paid, waited in the rain and made it possible. That is a serious achievement from a small valley, and the whole club should be pleased with itself this week.
A word on our contribution
BVSS have been kind enough to credit the men’s league with a hand in it. The official wording is that playing against men gave the boys “consistent, real game scenarios” that were “integral to their development.”
We accept the compliment. We would also like to note, quietly, what it actually says.
We were the scenario.
Somewhere in that valley a group of seventeen-year-olds were being carefully developed into competitive athletes, and the equipment used to develop them was us. We are, it turns out, a training aid. A very willing one, with a sore lower back.
And now they’re in our league
BV United line up in the Fall Classic this season. A squad of gold medallists, average age seventeen, freshly returned from beating teams from two countries — entering a competition whose warm-up routine is largely conversational and whose substitution policy exists because of hamstrings.
This was our idea. Nobody forced it on us. We looked at a group of tournament-winning teenagers and thought: yes, let’s have them in with us, every week, for the rest of the autumn.
To their credit, they have never once mentioned the age gap. To ours, we have decided not to bring it up either.
Welcome
Seriously though — welcome. A league is better for having a side in it that actually trains, and everybody else in this competition will be sharper for playing against them.
Fixtures and standings are on the site. The boys are on the Teams page like everyone else, and the table does not ask anyone’s age.
Go BV United.