Two marquee games launched the NSL into existence this past week. The first was Vancouver Rise against Calgary Wild at BC Place Stadium and the other was AFC Toronto hosting Montreal Roses at BMO Field*. I watched both. Here’s the Good, the Bad and Ugly of these two games and the start of National Super League.

Also, Dick Mosher, former UBC men’s and women’s varsity soccer head coach, passed away three years ago come April 24th. I played for him for four years there. Some thoughts on him as a coach and person.

^{NSL Launches with games in Vancouver and Toronto}

They did it. And they did it on schedule, with two large crowds and a surfeit of positive vibes. They also showed doubters, myself included to some degree, that they could pull it off on the timeline they had created and stuck to. Less than a year ago there was just four franchises (a word I still recoil at having to use for professional sports teams). Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Halifax patiently waited while the league secured the necessary two additional teams needed. Those came in the form of Montreal last May and Ottawa in August.

Since then, staff and rosters have gradually materialized until we got to opening night in Vancouver last week with the game against Calgary on Wednesday, April 16. Was it a classic? No. Quinn scored a penalty to win it for Vancouver. Similarly, Montreal beat Toronto 1-0 but that game was considerably more entertaining.

Here’s the highlights:

And here’s a Good, Bad and the Ugly on the two games and where NSL is at.

The Good

• Both games had announced crowds of over 14,000. Tremendous start to the life of this league.

• The attacking play of Holly Ward from Rise FC is exactly what the league needs and what will draw people’s attention to it. Her incessant, successful runs at defenders led to the penalty that Rise were awarded and nearly netted Ward a goal of her own when she tried to squeeze the ball in from a sharp angle past Wild keeper, Stephanie Bukovec, and saw it hit the post and carry on out the far side of the goal.

• Atmosphere at BMO Field was really good.

• TV production values were good. Crowd at BC Place would have maybe been kept a bit more compact on the side the cameras were facing onto.

• Standard of play was what you’d both expect (early in the season belied a lack of time playing together) and hope for (this is clearly a big step better than League 1 and University soccer).

• The Toronto v Montreal game was a really good ad for the league. It was a competitive game with quality play that stayed exciting through until the final whistle. I think most who went would consider coming back.

The Bad

• There’s a considerable gap on team’s top players and their bottom players. The league will prosper if the talent level is reasonably consistent through at least their starting elevens so hopefully with time some players will benefit from being in an environment with better players and pull their game up closer to theirs.

• It’s early and I get that teams have some players who were just recently signed. So I hope a lack of preparation is more to blame than some players’ ability when it comes to playing out from the back. There were plenty of decidedly poor efforts in this aspect of play. Calgary in particular really struggled to play through what was a mid-level press from Rise off goal kicks. My notes on this say, “Short pass, short pass, panic, smash it up the field.”

• Again it’s early but NSL does not want to mirror CPL’s first season which saw only 75 goals in the first 35 games of the spring component of the inauguaral 2019 season. That felt meagre at 2.14 goals per game. The first two NSL games are at one goal per game.

• The league website does not keep rosters or general info up to date. Their traffic will be sky high right now and if they want people to see it as a reliable source of info they need to keep info current and accurate. Similarly, many players info is not uploaded to FotMob, which has become the standard for live scores and player stats. Here’s what the Rise v Wild game page looks like on that platform.

The Ugly

• Wild only started five Canadians in this game. Teams are allowed seven internationals on their roster and Wild are at their max with that. Additionally, six of their Canadian players are dual nationals who have played internationally for other countries (same at youth levels, some at the full women’s national team level). Rise started six Canadians. According to Wikipedia, admittedly not the ideal source, they are actually over their international allotment with eight internationals. They also have two dual citizens who have played internationally for other countries. Doing the bare minimum in terms of signing Canadian players is not ideal.

There’s not point in me trying to reach to make more points. It’s very early in the life of a new league. There’s only been two games played and two teams haven’t even played yet. There will be lots more that is good to come out of this NSL season and likely some disappointments as well. There’s a lot of goodwill in place at this time. The job now is to reward that with quality play on the field and living up to it’s promise to be a league ‘by Canadians for Canadians.’

*^{Note that Rise FC will now play the rest of their home games at Swangard Stadium and AFC Toronto will play theirs at York Lions Stadium.}

_{Dick Mosher, UBC and Canadian University Coaching Legend}

Dick Mosher passed away three years ago come April 24. I could write 2000 words on Dick and how much he did for student athletes in his time as coach of the men’s and then the women’s teams at UBC. I could write another 4000 on him as the person that truly built the UBC men’s soccer program. Instead I’ll condense it down considerably and do a bit of both.

I played five years at UBC. My first year was with the also legendary Joe Johnson. When Dick took over after Joe retired he inherited a team that had won the last two national championships. This did not faze him. He was his own man and had confidence in his vision of what a university program could and should be. He did not need to be seen as domineering. He did not need to be seen as a genius. His goal, which is only obvious in hindsight, was to build a program that empowered others and through that build a team culture that was indomitable.

That started with his choice of assistant coach, Dave Partridge, who really has only ever been referred to as Shank for reasons that will need to wait for another newsletter, but has been one of my closest friends since he came to UBC from Leeds to do a Master’s and PhD and ended up being Dick’s go-to guy for structure and tactics upon his arrival. The empowerment extended subtly, and carefully, to the players as well. There’s only so much control you want to cede to 18-23 year olds but the more he trusted us, the more we rewarded that trust.

In his first season, we continued the previous season’s unbeaten run. We conceded one goal all season and went to Nationals in Toronto to defend our title in Varsity Stadium on a frozen grass field. We beat McGill 3-0 and University of Toronto 4-0.

By that time we were bulletproof. The belief was quiet but staggering. Players always played at very close to their absolute best. No one was going to be the player who let everyone down and everyone was respected for that. There was no hazing, no cliques and no attitude. We hung out together regularly and methodically went about dismantling every team we faced. We could do it playing very nice football or very physically, as our Canada West conference often demanded.

Dick was an academic and as such knew that he was dealing with student-athletes and that the student part came first in that descriptor for a reason. He worked with several players who were in challenging programs, including medicine, engineering and law, to ensure they could manage their course load while playing.

As Shank has said to me several times, “Dick believed in young people and he trusted them.” He gave us leeway to do some of the head shaking things young people do but knew when to step in for a course correction. He gave Shank leeway to bring his ideas to the field and never once worried about his authority being usurped. Incredible confidence for someone stepping in to coach a team with that record of winning. He trusted that what he gave in terms of trust, belief and space to contribute would be recognized and rewarded with trust, belief and respect not just for him but for the team environment in general. And he was right.

I played five years at UBC. We won three national championships. In 56 total league and playoff games, we only lost three times. Shank, again, “When Dick took over the program, he committed to two things. Players should enjoy being in it, and they should experience a program of international travel.” Travel was something Dick thought was an important aspect of the student athlete experience and he put those thoughts into action many times. In those four years playing under Dick we went to Japan twice, did a UK and Ireland tour and went to New Mexico for an international university tournament. The players I played with when Dick was coaching still get together. Many stayed involved in the game in some capacity. He would love that.

I was in a group text with Shank, former UBC Athletics Information Officer Don Wells and former UBC Athletic Director Kim Gordon about a week ago. Don told us Dick had said of myself and Alex Percy, my centreback partner at UBC and still close friend, “They’re the kind of guys that will just drop into my office to shoot the shit. I don’t know any other player who would do that.”

We would drop by because he made us feel we could and because it was a way to show how much respect we had for him.

I really hope every university athlete gets to look back at their time in varsity sports with as much happiness and pride as I do. It was a fantastic intersection of the right players at the right time with the right professor/coach/man left in charge of creating a culture that led to many championships and many more lifelong friendships and memories.

_{Next issue of BTP out on Monday, May 5 but I’m tempted to just start putting them out when I feel like it rather than every second Monday. Who knows.}