Hi again, BA friends!

Here we are, already knee deep into March, mere days away from setting our clocks an hour ahead, the annual ritual that buys us a later sunset, all for the low, low cost of having our children wake up at some ungodly hour before sunrise. And so, in an attempt to put another snowy winter in the rearview mirror, let us turn to thoughts of summer soccer!

As you probably remember, we are offering two flavours of summer footie this year with the BA: Wednesday nights at JDG Park, and the old faithful Saturday mornings at Potvin. Stop whatever you’re doing and… wait, that doesn’t make sense; you’re already reading this communication… please keep going!

Registration opens March 21st – 9 a.m.

If the indoor season was any indication, registration will probably fill up fast. We are opening up both seasons for you to register, and hope many of you will consider signing up for both. A few details to remember:

Wednesdays

• Wednesday night season runs May 10th to Oct 25th; you get twenty-five 60-minute games at 8:30 and 9:30 p.m, at JDG park near the intersection of Anderson and Leitrim Rds.
• Wednesday night format is 9v9, and the on-site pub will be open for us after the games
• $250 outfielders, $125 Keepers, $25 spares

Saturdays

• Saturday morning season runs May 20th to Oct 28th; you get eighteen 90-minute games at 10 a.m., at Potvin (Shefford Rd). We are looking into July/August 9 a.m. starts, but that is still TBC.
• Saturday morning format is 11v11, and the pub of choice is the Bad Alibi on Youville Dr.
• $225 outfielders, $115 Keepers, $25 spares

Note For Spares & Payments

• You will need to pay by credit card.
• If needed, there is an option to break into instalments.
• All registered players in Wednesday or Saturday can spare in the other league without paying the $25 spares fee.

A caution about cautions

We don’t want to beat this to death, but at the same time, we seem to have had an increase in yellow cards in recent weeks. We know everybody understands our code of conduct, and to be honest, the play on the field has been nothing short of exemplary. The big caveat, however, is that we are seeing a trend of more yellow cards for dissent, mostly (but not exclusively) directed at referees. We need everybody to control themselves as well as make an effort to cool teammates down. Some calls get missed, some calls don’t make sense, it’s how things go in a pub league. This is your reminder to not take it too seriously, because yelling at leaguemates or officials does not belong in the BA, and we will take action to protect our league values.

AGM Notes

Thank you to all who attended a spirited discussion late into the night, fueled by pizza and wings. Doug Spencer did an amazing job, as usual, taking very detailed notes to capture everything. Reading through them is like being there, all over again (you did fail to record any detailed description of the pizza and wings though, Doug!). If you missed it (or if you want to relive it), we’ve linked the AGM notes here.

Ok, that’s it – thanks again for your time and attention. Let’s finish the Thursday-night season strong, and melt this damned snow already!

Your BA Executive Team

Hello gents of the BA,

It’s been a little while since our last update, surely an indication that things have been running pretty smoothly this winter season. We promise we do have 1000 words for you in an upcoming missive but need to get a quick message out to confirm and remind — we are a go for Wednesday-evening soccer at the Julian de Guzman Park / German Club!

We have plenty of exciting communications to come, in which we will share more details, but for now, the important items to remember are as follows:

• Registration opens in mid-March (we don’t know how fast it will fill up, but if it’s anything like indoor on Thursday nights, it will be quick!). The season starts May 10th and runs to October 25th.
• Games will be
  • at JDG park near the intersection of Anderson/Leitrim Rds.
  • from 8:30-10 p.m. on Wednesday nights.
• We are looking at 7v7 on fields similar in size to the Superdome, but do have a number of options for different configurations (such as 9v9) if desired.
• Cost is TBD, but the field rental is a reasonable price, and much cheaper than a dome.
• The pub on site (German Club) will be open for us after the games
  • no confirmation yet as to what time they will kick Frank and Adam Skene out of the joint.
• Remember that this does not impact the Saturday-morning outdoor season at Potvin, which will continue as usual.
• Registration for that season will quickly follow the registration for the Wednesday-night league.
• We are encouraging everyone who can to sign up for both!

As mentioned, more details to come, but be ready for a great (maybe the best ever) summer with us!

Your BA Executive Team

Gentlemen of the BA,

Can’t blame you for thinking we can play outdoors forever: late October appears to be the new late September! Alas, we all know it will change all too soon – darkness, frosts warnings, the age-old question, “Why do I live in a place where the air hurts my face!?” Well, allow us to provide a silver lining to the dark clouds of a Canadian winter: Thursday evenings in the dome, Thursday nights at The Bad Alibi, the indoor soccer season is upon us! Please bear with us and have a read, this communication does include information we want you all to absorb, the way you have probably been absorbing the Halloween candy you bought a few weeks ago.

Welcome N00bs!

First order of business, a warm welcome to the newest members of the BA Soccer League! We are convinced, and expect you will be soon enough, that this is a league unlike any other. As you have no doubt read in our separate communication to the Newbies that is surely NOT caught in your spam filter (it’s not too late, go ahead and recover it!), we place great emphasis here on keeping things fun, friendly and respectful every single week. We know you’ll enjoy your first season in the league and implore you to make at least a few appearances at the pub to get to know your league mates, be they teammates or future teammates. Don’t forget that we have great prizes at the pub that only pub dwellers… er… goers… are eligible to win.

Rosters

We did it again! Yeah, maybe it took a pinch of blackmail, a dash of favours, and a dollop of threats, but we managed to convince eight of you to manage a team. The rest of you, please go easy on them. They’ve been through a lot (especially this week). For those taking names, here they are:

Green – Ryan Zurawell
Pink – Matt DeSouza
Yellow – Colin Raines
White – Brian Garson
Orange – Nem Jevtovic
Black – Tom Borbely
Light Blue – Ron Garson
Red – Yanic Giroux

You can find your team and game info on TeamSnap (see additional note below). The full list of teams can also be found on the website.

Opening Night Reminder

You’re looking at 7 days until kickoff, that’s 7 chances to take a jog around the block after dinner! You may chortle at the idea but think of the advantage that sort of training regiment could give you. Everyone would ask your secret. Okayyy… back in the real world, here’s one thing we’d really appreciate you actually doing: please get to the dome a bit early (15 minutes is always recommended but maybe even earlier this time) to let your manager sort out shirts and anything else they want to relay to the team before the game.

TeamSnap

Please accept your invitation to TeamSnap, whether you prefer using the website or the phone app it is a very valuable tool and takes (a bit of) the pain out of managing. First and foremost, PLEASE set your availability as far into the future as possible. If you believe you will be attending the next month’s worth of games, set your attendance for those games – you can always change it if something comes up. If you know you will be missing games, please mark those ASAP; it is vital for your manager to know early in the week to procure a replacement if needed. It’s also a nice way to communicate with your teammates, discuss tactics, plan post-game beers, etc.

If you have any trouble with teamsnap please send us an email: info@basoccer.ca and Brian Garson will help you out.

Spare Me!

Most of you know Dave Willey and Chris Bradley, but for those who do not you really should consider raising a glass at the pub with these fine gents. They do the tireless work of coordinating the spares each week, which requires monitoring rosters (you may notice them hanging out in your TeamSnap even if they aren’t on your team), cross-referencing the missing players with the players on the spares list and then doing some incredible mental gymnastics to figure out how to properly match the supply with the demand. We are grateful to have them working for us rather than wasting their talent solving rising global inflation. Joking aside, what they do is not easy, and we ask that you help make it easier for them by marking your availability early!

Give Us the Shirt Off Your Back!

Anyone who hasn’t yet brought back a shirt from the Outdoor season (or even last year’s indoor season, we won’t judge), consider this a Shirt Amnesty. Please bring them to Yanic – manager of the Red team who plays at 9:00 p.m. on the opening night. We recycle the shirts from season to season, in large part thanks to a patented detergent formula Denis Levesque invented in his basement lab, and it helps keep our costs down. Please help us out! Note: you are also encouraged to wash them yourselves from time to time, Denis’ ingenuity can only do so much.

Pick a Team Name and a Charity

This will be handled by the managers, but they will be asking you to come to consensus on two things for your team. First, we would like you to pick a witty team name that reflects the shirt colour you have been given. Secondly, and on a related note, we’d like you to select a charity to “play for” this season – at the end of the year we will recognize the best team name and the team that received the fewest (yellow/red) cards over the course of the season and make a donation to your charity of choice. We hope you like this new little wrinkle, and we also hope it gives you extra incentive to think of a great name and play like a true gentleman all season long.

The Bad Alibi

As it was last year, The Bad Alibi is our official pub of choice for post-game beverages, chatter, and re-carbulating. If you haven’t yet had their wings or all 14 or so flavours of their wings (Korean BBQ is a fan favourite), you are missing out – they are up there with the best. And at $10/lb exclusively for us on Thursday nights, free nachos for each table and a great selection of local craft beers, they make it really easy to continue your Thursday night with your favourite athletes. Besides that, showing up to the pub decreases the chances of everyone complaining about that pass you should have made to a wide-open teammate.

The BA Code of Conduct

Yes, we say this every season, but just call us suckers for the classics. The BASL is known as one of Ottawa’s absolute best recreational leagues when it comes to sportsmanship and camaraderie – this includes equal respect for teammates and opponents alike (within a few years those opponents will be your teammates), as well as referees.

Make no mistake, we do love a good and competitive atmosphere, and everyone has a bad day from time to time – there will be slip-ups – but anyone who develops a pattern of rash challenges, abusive behaviour, or just general lack of respect for the league’s goal of a fun and friendly atmosphere, will stick out like a sore thumb and will be dealt with swiftly and accordingly. This is our BA code of conduct. New players, you’ve been informed. Returning members, you certainly know this, and we are counting on you to set the example for newer players.

Indoor Rules

Mandatory Health PSA

You probably figured we couldn’t get away without mentioning it. There’s nothing urgent to discuss right now, but it bears repeating what really should be common sense by now: if you are at all feeling sick, Covid or not, or if someone in your household has symptoms, please rule yourself out for soccer. We have experienced the absolute bummer of having seasons ruined by the pandemic: let’s just do our best with what is within our control. You may recall that there is a health check function in TeamSnap. As of now we are not going to require using it, but if guidance from Ottawa Public Health or Health Canada changes, we may bring that back. I think I speak for everyone when I say, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

That’s it for now! Thank you all once again for joining us for another great season, we can’t wait to see you on the turf! Keep yourselves warm and your beer cold!

Your BA Executive Team