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.
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