BEHIND THE PLAY #63

I stumbled across a First Nations soccer tournament in Alert Bay this past weekend. I’m still smiling when I think about it.

I was away for four days last week. The premise of the trip was to visit a friend in palliative care. It was planned a month or so ago with it being me and him going on it and knowing this would likely be the last chance we had to do a little road trip. But his health deteriorated and he had to enter palliative care less than a week before we were to leave. My wife, who also has known him a long time, came instead as he insisted we still go. We visited him on our way up to Pt McNeil, where we were staying and again on the way down.

So we drove up the Island Highway, laden with sadness, to a quiet, remote part of our province far up the coast at the north end of Vancouver Island. The trip had been planned as a chance to bike on Malcolm Island and Cormorant Island (better known as Alert Bay). My wife being subbed in meant the rides were shorter and the sunny patio stays were longer.

We spent a lot of time talking about our friend on the way up, while there and they way down. Someone who has been heavily involved in local soccer since I met him upon his arrival in Canada in 1986. Our families are closely connected and seeing him on the way up was really emotional. His physical deterioration was marked.

I describe this thing as an intersectional soccer newsletter. It tries to be about where and how the game crosses paths with our lives. I acknowledge that sometimes my efforts in that vein are a stretch. This one is not a stretch.

On our third day of the trip, last Friday, we were waiting to get on the ferry to Alert Bay from Pt. McNeil. I saw some kids kicking a ball around while they waited to board. Then I saw other in team tracksuits. And more. I thought of the times I read Shaw Bobb’s Facebook posts about spring tournaments hosted in First Nations communities and how our own Musqueam players would let us know they weren’t available to play with us on their team some weekends in the spring because they had their Musqueam tournament team to play on. So I was aware of these tournaments but knew nothing about them. that said, I figured there was a good chance he’d be at this one.

I don’t know Shawn well but he played at UBC for the men’s team and his then future wife played on the women’s team. They are fiercely proud of their First Nation culture and heritage. Shawn writes passionately about this on his Facebook page. As someone who grew up in North Van and knew absolutely nothing about Residential Schools and how First Nations people were treated despite going to school with kids from the Burrard Reserve at Windsor Secondary, it’s been an appallingly late education for me to understand this shameful history. Shawn helped me with that through some of his posts and I’m really hoping that someday I read that he is running for public office either as a tribal chief or at the municipal, provincial or federal levels of government.

So I messaged him on Facebook asking if he was on Alert Bay this weekend.

We cycled around the island a bit and then headed up to the field where the tournament was curious to see what it would be like and hoping to run into Shawn.

Here’s my main takeaways. They are not tactical or technical. They are social.

There were no VEO cameras. There was no angry parents or coaches screaming at refs. There were no group of supporters from each team yelling at each other. No one was writing down how much playing time their kid got. I don’t remember anyone staring at their phones for any length of time. They were either actively watching the game or engaged in conversation with someone; usually laughing.

What we had already seen on the island when we were toodling about on our bikes was Alert Bay’s main resource. Friendly people. People smiling and waving to us on on our bikes from their cars. Going out of their way to say hello. Not one or two. Virtually everyone we came within reasonable distance of while we were riding around exhibited some form of joy or welcome to us. To be clear, Alert Bay is a small community. The know each other and these people knew we were not from there.

People at the field were there for the day. Not to see one particular game. This was a community event. A chance to catch up with people. Inter-generational. Load of tents selling many types of food and drink. Loads of tents selling First Nations arts and crafts. Loads of other bikes there. None, from what we saw, locked up. Our family has had five bikes stolen. I lock my bike up all the time. I did not lock it up there. It just felt safe.

Having been to many, many soccer tournaments over the last quarter century I am used to seeing a fair degree of tension. Angry yelling and complaining often not far behind. None of that here. Kids of all ages walking around. Some sporting awards they had won that day or the night before as part of the cultural component that seems to accompany these tournaments.

We watched two games. A men’s and a women’s. The women’s game was a blowout. These teams are multi-age with players of all abilities encouraged to participate. The team that was winning had three outstanding players. Without making a show of it, they brought it down a notch once the goals started piling in. They did it in a way that was respectful and not virtue-signalling. The knew their opponents, on average, were younger and far less experienced.

It was really the most positive vibe I’ve felt at a tournament. This is what community does and how it intersects with the game in a positive, pro-active way. Shawn’s “Did you bring your boots?” is a better representation of inclusion than the several DEI seminars and exercises I’ve participated in the past few years. “You’re here? Join us.” I’m not First Nations. I’m not on that team. But I’m welcome. By Shawn and really everyone there.

I never did see Shawn there but on our way back to the ferry we stopped at a store and as we were leaving it and getting on our bikes, a First Nations woman was coming in with a grocery bag. She stopped as our paths crossed. “Hello!” she said with a smile. We said hello back, also with a smile. “Hey, would you like an apple?” And with that she pulled out two apples and we graciously accepted. The simple gesture of generosity shouldn’t stand out so much but I’ve lived in Vancouver almost my entirely life and never experienced that from a stranger. Only took a couple hours here.

The apple was a gift in and of itself. More importantly it was the gift of openness to strangers, a welcoming gesture and a bit of warmth for two people who were grateful for the respite of thinking about a friend they are about to lose.

So glad we went.

_{^{Next BTP Newsletter: Monday, June 30}}