The Toonie Tournament, a round-robin style soccer event, will take place this weekend from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday in the Canada Games Centre (CGC) at the Fieldhouse and Flexihall.

Every player is asked to bring $2 or a non-perishable item for the Whitehorse Food Bank. All proceeds go to the food bank.

Haines Junction and Dawson City teams were invited, but declined because of the current COVID-19 situation. As a result, only Whitehorse teams are participating.

"We've kind of had to modify it a little bit, so it's not really a tournament in any sense, just because of the capacity limits and trying to limit the amount of people at the Canada Games Centre at one time. Families coming and going, there's lot of traffic and congestion," said Travis Banks, the office administrator of Whitehorse United FC (WUFC).

Each team will have one to two games, depending on the age group and how many teams are in the league.

"For the most part, everyone's going to show up, have a bit of a game, and then go home," said Banks.

There will be over 20 teams participating in the tourney, depending on how many players show up.

A table will be set up on the second floor overlooking the fields. A cash dropbox will be on the table to avoid over-handling of cash. The public is invited to make donations as well.

The tourney will feature staggered start times in order to avoid congestion.

The event also has a "Sunday Showcase" featuring the travel teams.

"The idea is that we have a practice or game so that we can get some more people interested in those sorts of programs, just to show – if a parent has got a three-year-old, and is gonna love soccer and it's something to look forward to when he hits 10 years old, there's a training group ... things like that," said Banks.

A new program is also taking place on Sunday.

"We started an all-girls program," related Banks. "It's coached by females as well. So this is the first time we've ever done anything like that.

“There's been girls’ soccer teams, but this is the first all-girls program. It's across multiple ages and we've got a bunch of local former soccer players leading the charge on that group. So that's really cool."

The name of the program is “Futures”, and will be another showcase event on Sunday. The hope is to recruit female players into the soccer program.

"Nowadays you're seeing a lot – especially in our older age groups – there's a lot less interest on the girl's side, or if it's advertised as a co-ed program, not a lot of people are registering, not a lot of girls are in the program, so we think it's important to try to give them their own space.

“To try to keep girls in sports, and a big part of that is to have female coaches as well. So we're excited about that," enthused Banks.

The travel teams' showcase is scheduled for Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Flexihall.

The girls' Futures program is scheduled for 12:15 p.m. Sunday at the Fieldhouse.