Cochrane Wolves FC were a force to reckon with at the All-State Family Day Classic in Calgary.
The Cochrane Wolves U11 Tier 1 boys competed in the older U12 Tier 4 division. After going undefeated in the preliminary round, they claimed gold with a 5-0 win over the SSA Stetsons.
The U10 Girls won silver in a close 3-2 final against the Blizzard.
Scott Ansel, Wolves director of soccer, says Cochrane minor soccer has been making great strides since revamping the program three years ago, especially with its core of younger, developing players.
"You can see the positive outcomes that they're having in competitive play versus maybe some of the older groups that didn't get exposed to the same level of programming, training, and environment," says Ansell, "Not just in terms of the results, but just the impact that you can see within the groups of players."
The number of those playing indoor soccer has doubled to more than 500, almost as many youth as they had in the entire program three years ago. When you include the outdoor season there are between 1,500 and 2,000 youth playing the world's most popular sport.
"It's very exciting and sometimes you do forget to celebrate the moment and enjoy the present, always thinking about the future. We're very proud and it's very exciting to see them regularly in their training environments. They're a really good group of kids that are very supportive of each other, and good teammates."
Success, though, has its challenges.
The Wolves are facing an acute shortage of space and struggling to find facilities within the community. They book as much time as possible on the SLS Centre's indoor court, but it's in high demand, and with all due respect, isn't truly an indoor pitch.
"We keep finding different ways to get more kids involved in the sport or playing the sport, but we have to make some decisions on which programs get how much time and space, how many days of programming, and all those kinds of things."
As the current nucleus of the club gets older, it's going to become an even larger challenge.
"They used to get to a certain age and stop playing because they didn't have the skills to enjoy the sport properly. Now we've got maybe 300 kids from ages 8 to 12 playing, and those kids aren't going to drop out of the sport. We're retaining them longer and longer and we're not sure where we're going to put them in two, three, four years but we're definitely exploring different options.
"We may be forced to look at options outside of Cochrane."
They have been exploring the potential of establishing a domed sportsfield in the new Rolling Trails ASP, but that option is too far down the road to address current needs.
At this point, it's also hard to decipher what the town's priorities will be for new recreation facilities. The town is currently updating its drastically outdated recreation master plan.
Ansell says the Wolves are in regular contact with sports organizations who are also desperate for indoor space
"You've got minor ball, you've got rugby, you've got all those good sports, and we have new ones reaching out to us (like track and field) asking how things are going because they want in, they need indoor space; they would love indoor space."
"There must be 4,000 or 5,000 participants in Cochrane, which is a tenth of the town, engaged in those sports and there's not a proper facility for us to play in. I don't know what projects are more important than servicing or supporting them."
The indoor season wraps up in mid-March and after a few weeks of downtime, the outdoor season gets underway. Registration is open for the summer season.
For more information on the Cochrane Wolves FC, visit here.