It was a busy night of futsal at the Canada Games Centre flexihall as the Yukon Selects FC hosted their annual Selects Christmas Showcase. According to Jake Hanson, director of Total Soccer Excellence, the showcase has been consistently offered since the CGC opened in 2007, but actually, the first showcase happened in the late ‘90’s.

“The first event of its kind happened in 1999 at Vanier (Secondary School),” said Hanson. “It was the men’s select team and it was done to promote the first Canada Games boys soccer team for the Yukon. The gym was full, there were at least 300 people.”

Hanson played in that game and was behind the benches on Wednesday. He said the showcase is an opportunity for the community to see some good soccer.

“The goals of the evening were to showcase the club, the Western Canada Summer Games (WCSG) teams, and the college players who are back in the Yukon after playing outside the territory.”

According to the program handed out at the showcase more than 60 players from the Yukon have played varsity soccer Outside. Eight players played elsewhere in 2018.

The evening’s showcase began with a highly competitive U12 boy’s inter-squad game. It was followed by another split-squad game this time the U14 boys. Both teams brought their all to the games which lived up the showcase billing.

The third game of the evening was the WCSG girls versus the Yukon Selects women in a tightly contested game. The Selects got on the board first rifling a shot into the top corner of the net, they played strong defence the rest of the half and carried the lead into the second.

The WCSG team rallied back and scored two unanswered goals, both from distance and into the top of the net past the goalie. They were unable to hold onto their lead and the game ended in a draw 2-2.

“The women’s team came together kind of last minute but it was a mix of high school players and first and second-year college players,” said Hanson. “The girls are a strong team with a core that played together at U15 nationals together.”

In the final game of the showcase game the WCSG U17 boys kicked-off against the Yukon Select men’s team in a battle of two accomplished squads.

“The boy’s team is very good,” said Hanson. “They finished seventh in the last Canadian Nationals and a lot of them train up with the men’s team. There is a lot of respect between the two teams.”

On the men’s side of the court, they are preparing for the Futsal Nationals in April.

“The men’s team will be travelling to Kingston, Ont., to play in the Futsal Nationals,” said Hanson. “This is the second year the Yukon will be sending a team, and it is also the second year that it is open to all provinces, it used to just be Ontario and Quebec. A lot of the men played for the selects, so they are a good group of homegrown players and players coming from out of town. There is one guy (Ben Svabo) who is from Hungary, who was a youth international player for his country, and two from England.”

In the first half of the game, the boy’s team got down early, but rallied back to score two unanswered goals, one off a nice pass to the middle with the goalie out of position and the other a hard strike just off the ground.

The men’s team regained the lead in the second 3-2, but the boy’s team rallied back and scored two late goals off the foot of Ben Kishchuk to take the match 4-3.

Hanson says it is common for the players, competing and training outside of the Yukon to come back and join the men’s select team. What he is also seeing is more players starting to coach, a cyclical trend he hopes to see more of.