Mid-Isle Soccer’s Girl Power program held a weekend celebration of Canadian soccer star, Christine Sinclair’s record setting 186 career goals. Sinclair now holds the record for most career international goals scored by a female or male soccer player world wide.
Christiane Kamerman of Mid-Isle Soccer said it was important to celebrate Sinclair’s success and show local girls what they can achieve through sport.
“I wanted to really let these little ones know,” Kamerman said. “There is somewhere you can go with soccer, you can build a dream.”
The Girl Power program was formed to give young girls between the ages of five and eight the option to play against each other, rather than with boys. Kamerman said that boys and girls play the game differently, and she noticed a lot of young girls giving up on soccer because they became frustrated with the way boys played.
“At that young age they develop so differently. The boys want to go and get goals, and the girls want to pass the ball and strategize a bit more. They don’t want the boys to steal the ball from them every two-seconds,” she said.
Another benefit of the Girl Power program is players can be grouped according to skill level rather than age. Players who go through the Girl Power program develop stronger soccer skills by the time they play in the U10 league.
“One of the girls who came in last year was so shy, and she didn’t want anything to do with soccer. We held her hand the whole way through, and it was baby steps the rest of the year with her. This year she’s one of my top players,” Kamerman said. “In the regular program we would have lost her, and she wouldn’t play soccer anymore.”
Participation in the Girl Power Program is completely optional. If young girls want to play with the local boys teams, they are more than welcome to do so. Girl Power’s goal is to get girls to love the game of soccer.