West Ottawa Soccer Scoop: Warrior thrives on multi-sport lifestyle at club’s summer camps

By West Ottawa Soccer Club
Noah Nickerson’s life is jam-packed with sports. In the winter, the 11-year-old is a skier, hockey and futsal player, he plays soccer all summer, and enjoys badminton, basketball, track-and-field, volleyball and tchoukball at school.
“I find it makes me a better athlete to play all of these different sports,” the U12 West Ottawa Warrior highlights.
Nickerson’s love for sports has translated into quite a bit of success too. He’s now preparing for an overseas trip with his soccer team to face some of the best English youth clubs, which comes on the heels of a memorable hockey season that culminated in a league title.
“It felt great to win the championship,” recounts Nickerson, who also carries the Warrior name for his West Carleton minor hockey club. “We were all so excited.”
Aside from literally being a posterboy for West Ottawa Soccer Club’s summer multisport camps, Nickerson is also a shining example of the all-around athlete approach the club strongly encourages.
“It just makes sense to have that base of athleticism,” says Gord Macdonald, WOSC’s multisport program director. “If you focus on that now, you’re going to be better off in the long run in whatever sport you eventually end up playing.
“We want our athletes to meet their ultimate potential. We want to give them different avenues of athletic development, not just soccer specific.”
Being involved in many different activities can also help young athletes avoid getting burnt out in any one activity, Macdonald adds.
“Playing multiple sports helps to keep them interesting,” Nickerson echoes. “I don’t ever get tired of playing sports.”
The Grade 6 St. Michael Fitzroy Catholic Elementary School student participated in both of WOSC’s summer camp offerings last year – the multisport camp and the soccer-specific camp (which features sprinklings of other sports as well).
“The camps were great,” Nickerson details. “I love to be with my friends, playing sports.”
Participants in the multisport camps take part in a range of activities such as floor hockey, dodgeball, ultimate, touch football and touch rugby, plus games that involve running, jumping, catching and throwing, or variations of sports like tennis-baseball or scricket (squash and cricket). Swimming and tennis at city facilities also take place.
Kids as young as 4 can attend for two hours, and there are half-day (age 6-7) and full-day options as well.
The camps are being offered at additional west-end locations this summer – North & South Kanata, Munster, Carp, Dunrobin and Richmond.
In soccer-specific camps for ages 8-13, players are grouped together based on their abilities, while there are also high-performance soccer camps for players age 11-15 run under the direction of WOSC’s club lead coaches.
Campers don’t need to be members of the West Ottawa Soccer Club to participate.
The cost of the camps is between $165-$200 per week, plus there is the option to get lunch from a catering company.
“We hire skilled, mature staff. We don’t cut corners. We pay them well, and that makes a difference in a camper’s experience,” notes Macdonald, a long-time camp organizer who’s now in his second year operating under the WOSC banner. “The response was overwhelmingly good last year. The camps are a lot of fun.”