Don’t let the temporary stands and field lights, lack of a functioning scoreboard, overwhelming trailer and dumpster presence, and sparse fan attendance fool you-there is still something exciting happening on Varsity Field. And that something comes in the form of the men’s soccer team, who opened their regular season this past weekend with wins against Laurentian and Nippissing.
As the defending Ontario university champions, the team is shouldering some high expectations-and is planning on surpassing them.
“We really have two goals for this season,” explained head coach Jim Vidovich. “The first is to win the Ontario championships again and the second is to take the Canadian title.”
However, Vidovich is quick to point out that while the CIS title is certainly a serious goal for this season, the primary goal is winning a repeat OUA title. The provincial championship is more important than it seems, according to Vidovich, because the Blues play in what he considers the toughest division in the country.
If this is true, and winning in Ontario is the largest hurdle on the way to the national showdown, then one question looms: why were the 2002 OUA champion Blues not CIS champions as well?
Vidovich has an answer to that critical question. Last year, the team battled through the provincial playoffs and by the time they reached the nationals, they were simply “burned out.”
“After the Brock game, [the game that knocked them out of the running for top team in the country] over 50 per cent of the team was in the clinic with serious injuries,” recalls Vidovich. That burn-out, he claims, is the explanation for the Blues’ loss at nationals.
Vidovich hopes to remedy that problem this fall by relying on a bredth of talent. Seven of last year’s starters return this season, and by cutting returning players from the squad, a stacked bench of new players waits to take the field.
While it was a tough decision for the team’s coaching staff to make, this replacement will hopefully give the team a deeper bench so as to avoid burning players out before the playoffs.
The new game plan payed off this weekend. Vidovich used the Laurentian and Nipissing games to test his roster and to give his new players a chance to prove themselves. So far, it seems that the added depth is worth the sacrifice that had to be made to take them on board.
“I’m very pleased with the boys and very confident about this season,” asserted Vidovich. On Saturday, the Blues beat Laurentian 3-1. Building on their first win, the men’s team went on to defeat Nipissing 2-0 yesterday. Sean Myers and Marc Jankovic put the points on the board, and goaltender Dennis Dalmas registered the shut-out.
