Christmas came a little early at the West Ottawa Soccer Club, and it was a present that club members will surely remember for many years.
Women’s national team players and Olympic bronze medalists Christine Sinclair, Karina Leblanc, Diana Matheson and Rhian Wilkinson were in town for an evening social at the Brookstreet Hotel on Dec. 5. Proceeds from the event went to support them in their journey towards the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada.
The four stars also led training sessions, signed autographs and shared inspirational words with young players from WOS and other clubs alike over two days at the Thunderbird Dome.
“My daughter is still on cloud nine,” one parent wrote in a recent thank-you message to the women’s national team. “Also a huge thanks to WOS for hosting a once in a lifetime experience.”
The main message the Team Canada ladies wanted to share with the young athletes was to love what you do and work hard at it.
“I got cut from three teams when I was young,” Wilkinson told a group of enthusiastic, wide-eyed youngsters. “The coach kept telling me that I wasn’t good enough, and you know what that made me do? I went home and I practiced harder because I love doing it and I didn’t want him to tell me what I couldn’t do, and the next year, I made the team.”
“And do you guys know what happened last summer?” she asked with a smile, whipping out her Olympic medal to cheers. “You guys see that? Does it look like chocolate?
“We were able to do this because we had big, big, big dreams and what we want you guys to do is dream big, big, big, big, big dreams. We want you to realize that one day this can be you, standing up here like the four of us, and you can have this dream one day.
“And it doesn’t have to be soccer. You may want to be a doctor or a teacher or anything. But we want you guys to dream big dreams too.”
There were about as many smiles and laughs from the four visitors during the fun-filled sessions, which included Sinclair coordinating an attack with her group of kids to suddenly charge over and steal all the soccer balls from Matheson’s group.
“It’s really special for all of us to meet these kids and see how excited they are, and remember when we were kids,” Wilkinson said after the session. “It’s such an honour for us.”
For Wilkinson and Matheson, the visit was a homecoming of sorts since they’d previously lived in Ottawa while playing in the W-League earlier in their careers. They were enthused to see the passion and excitement for soccer alive and well in the city.
“It’s wonderful,” Wilkinson added. “I just use this club as an example – look at this organization and how hard they’ve worked to bring us here and be with all these kids. And to sell out the event last night, it was amazing.
“Watching all these kids working with people like Kristina Kiss, an ex-national team player, and other coaches with great experience here, I’m excited about the future of soccer here.”