Carrie in the news

Free Kick Publisher Carrie Serwetnyk was recently interviewed

Read the following stories:

Canadian soccer hall of famer Serwetnyk: why women’s soccer matters

Canadian women’s soccer pioneer spreads the gospel

Carrie Serwetnyk, one of the few women in the Soccer Hall of Fame, talks to students about the CONCACAF tournament. Photograph by: GLENN BAGLO, VANCOUVER SUN

Women’s 2012 Olympic Qualification Tournament

School Presentation

Find out how you can bring a Cheer 4 Canada Spirit to your School

Video Contest

Create a 30 second to 3 minute video promoting the Canadian Women’s National team or girls/women’s soccer and send it to the Canadian Soccer Association Facebook Page.

Volunteers

Volunteers are needed. Email scrimmageville@yahoo.com for more details.

Inspiring the younger generation that girls and women's sports matter.

5 fun facts about the renovated BC Place Stadium in Downtown Vancouver

A new era for local sports and entertainment is about to begin

For nearly three decades, BC Place has been a centerpiece for the City of Vancouver. Originally erected as the world’s largest air-supported stadium in 1983, the stadium has now been reinvented and modernized. The stadium has again made history, as it is now a year-round open-air facility with a brand new cable-supported retractable roof – the biggest of its kind in the world.

On Friday, September 30th, the greatly improved BC Place will reopen with a Canadian Football League game between the BC Lions and Edmonton Eskimos. On Sunday afternoon, the Vancouver Whitecaps FC take on the Portland Timber.

Retractable Roof

The only venue of its kind in MLS, the stadium features 100m x 85m of blue-sky when open – the same size as the field area below. Each of the roof’s support masts is 47m tall. All together, the structure is like 18 suspension bridges, each around 200m long. To open the roof, the flexible Tenara fabric retracts into the centre of the opening where it’s hidden inside of a pod above the video board. The transformation takes just 20 minutes.

Video Board

As part of the renovations, a new state-of-the-art four-sided centre-hung high definition video board has been installed. The screen is the second largest of its kind in North America – behind only the one at Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Texas. The largest side is 68ft x 38ft, the same area as 450 42” flat screen TVs. The 100,000 pound unit may be raised or lowered depending on event or game requirements.

Light Display

Those who gaze at the stadium will notice a significant new attraction. Façade panels have been installed just above the concrete ring beam to create a new ETFE light display. This display will show a variety of colours and will be customized for Whitecaps FC matches.

Environment and Sustainability

The new roof results in much greater energy efficient, saving 25 percent on energy costs (or about $350,000 per year). New energy-efficient sports lighting has also been built in, allowing brighter lights and using 40% less energy. Other initiatives include expanded recycling and carbon neutral operations that aim to improve carbon management and shrink actual emissions year after year.

Field

A new Polytan Ligaturf 240 RS+ all-weather turf field has been installed. The playing surface has a FIFA 2-star rating, designed to meet the highest standards. This field has previously been used at the training grounds for German club Bayern Munich, as well as stadiums such as: Borussia-Park in Mönchengladbach, Germany; Red Bull Arena in Salzburg, Austria and Estadio Nacional in Lima, Peru.

For more information visit the BC Place website.

Canada’s Chances at the Women’s World Cup

By Mike Toth

Just what are the chances of Canada winning a medal at this summer’s FIFA Women’s World  Cup, or even better, walking away the Big Prize itself? How about trying to sneak the  sunrise past a rooster, say those who don’t like to put much faith in fairy tales with happy endings.

Other devotees to the Beautiful Game beg to differ – and this particular camp includes Canada’s frontline foot(y) soldiers marching off to the battle fields of Germany ready, willing and able to meet the challenge. The Canadian women have spent the better part of the past two months in a soccer specific training camp in Rome and the players feel their prospects are bright for Mission Germany, especially in view of the Canadian team’s considerable successes since they so spectacularly snatched the North American title away from the powerhouse United States.

For one, young Jonelle Filigno is practically bursting with confidence. “Myself individually, as well as the entire team feel we are well prepared,” says Filigno, the fast-rising striker already touted as the heir apparent to Christine Sinclair as Canada’s next prima soccerina. “The recent successes that we have had all added to the confidence and belief that we now have going into the World Cup. Not many teams can say that they’ve had the success that we’ve had leading up to the World Cup.”

At the tender age of 20 Filigno is the youngest player on Team Canada. She is also battle-hardened with 30-plus international appearances to her credit already. Among others, Filigno has helped Canada win the 2010 Gold Cup, gold medal at the 2008  CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, reached the quarter-final with Canada at the 2008 Olympic Games, and represented Canada at the 2008 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

Women’s World Cup 2011 Preview

By Jason Beck

Barely a year after Spain rocked the soccer world with its first-ever World Cup victory in South Africa following a month of mostly tedious, defensive soccer, the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany has the opportunity to make the beautiful game, well, beautiful once again. 

Running from June 26^th until the Final match July 17^th, the tournament boasts the strongest representation of women’s soccer ever from around the globe.  And that’s good news for everyone from your average footy fanatic to the casual observer who might tune in for the odd game.

A recurrent criticism of the women’s game when compared to the men’s has been the disparity in level of play between nations, a core group of five to eight North American and European nations consistently thumping less established and developing national programs from elsewhere by a wide margin.  Occasionally, scoring has reached double digits.  Case in point: the opening match of the 2007 tournament where Germany destroyed an under-prepared and badly out-matched Argentina 11-0.

Don’t expect any NFL-like scores this time around.  Although disparities remain and perennial favourites Germany, USA, and Brazil appear strong once again, the nations in pursuit have fast closed the gap.  Japan enters the tournament ranked an all-time high fourth in the world and shouldn’t be dismissed despite a history of uneven results in the final tournament.  Coming off an impressive qualification campaign in which they won the CONCACAF Gold Cup, sporting a perfect 5-0 record (17 GF, 0 GA) no country in the world top-ten has made a larger leap forward than Canada, sitting an all-time high sixth, and led by Burnaby’s own Christine Sinclair, truly one of the world’s elite and still only 28, yet already playing in her third World Cup.

Scandinavian neighbours Norway and Sweden look solid and continued their perfect record of qualifying for all six Women’s World Cups thus far, matching Brazil, Germany, USA, Japan, and Nigeria in this regard.  Look for France, who compiled an impressive 11-0-1 qualifying record (53 GF, 2 GA), to surprise, while expect strong pushes from Korea DPR, England, and a youthful Australian side as well.  Mexico returns to its first World Cup since 1999, while New Zealand looks for improvement in its third trip.  Newcomers Columbia and Equatorial Guinea make their World Cup debuts to round out the sixteen nations who qualified.

Any list of players to watch must start with Brazil’s Marta, five-time defending FIFA Women’s Player of the Year, a wizard with the ball and clinical in her finishing.  Often compared to the legendary Pele, Marta nearly single-handedly carried Brazil to the 2007 World Cup Final, before falling to Germany 2-0.  Former Golden Ball and Golden Boot winner Birgit Prinz from Germany returns for what in all likelihood will be her swansong performance.  American Abby Wambach, with her impressive 118 goals in 157 international appearances, is always someone to keep your eye on, but younger teammate Megan Rapinoe will get some attention if one of her cracking free kicks finds the twine.  Experts believe two newcomers who may be able to lift their nations to the knockout stage and perhaps farther are Nigeria’s eighteen-year-old winger Ebere Orji, and Columbia’s seventeen-year-old midfielder Yoreli Rincon, who scored the highlight goal of the 2010 U-20 World Cup.