The weather in Prince George wasn’t cooperating at the start of the Special Olympics BC Summer Games, and for Team Yukon, the wind and rain that prevailed for much of opening day were far from ideal for the eight soccer teams exposed to the elements Friday at Rotary Soccer Field.
But instead of griping, the 11-player Team Yukon didn’t let the cool, wet and blustery conditions spoil their rare opportunity to play the game they love in a provincial tournament against their Special Olympics peers.
That kind of opportunity is nearly impossible to find in Whitehorse — an isolated city of just 35,000 that serves as the territorial capital and is home to the only Special Olympics soccer team in a vast territory spanning 442,443 square kilometres.
Seeded in the second of three divisions in the seven-a-side tournament, Yukon split its first two games Friday, opening with a 4–3 win over Victoria and ending the day with an 8–1 loss to the Burnaby Lightning.
Yukon went on to lose the Division 2 semifinal 1–0 to Victoria on Saturday afternoon and will return home to Whitehorse with bronze. Burnaby captured gold in the final against Victoria.
“The impression I have, watching the Yukon team play, is they’re definitely very driven and focused on what they’re doing — and they’re having fun,” said Burnaby Lightning coach Sarah Phillips.
“We had a lot of rain Friday, the weather was horrible, and all of those athletes were having a ton of fun, even with the rain. They weren’t fazed at all — they were just focused and kept playing. They’re an amazing group. It’s got to be an amazing experience for them. For a lot of them, they’re getting to see everybody for the first time.”
Yukon goalkeeper Gaetan (Gaets) Michaud is the team captain and on-field general, directing his teammates — especially when opponents are pressing. He was especially busy during the Burnaby game, and the score would have been far more lopsided had he not been in top form.
“He’s the top goalie of the tournament,” said Yukon assistant coach Ben Smith. “He singlehandedly saved about eight Burnaby goals Friday by throwing himself across the net. He’s the brick wall of this tournament.”
Michaud moved to Whitehorse from Quebec, years after he first caught the Special Olympics bug as a teenager growing up in Montreal’s West Island. Originally a track and field athlete, he switched to soccer at 21 when his team formed — but didn’t take on the goalkeeper role until after moving north to join his brother.
Unlike in summer — when it can be blistering hot in the land of the midnight sun — winters in Whitehorse are long, dark and cold. But the indoor fieldhouse at the Canada Games Centre, built for the 2007 Canada Winter Games, allows Michaud and his teammates to practise their soccer skills year-round.
“Most of them have been together since before I started coaching,” said head coach Ken Binns. “We’ve got three new athletes to soccer this year playing with us, and they’ve just excelled leaps and bounds since we started working hard to get ready for provincials.”
Binns, who never played soccer himself, took over coaching 15 years ago when interest in the floor hockey team he was leading dropped off.
“The program was pretty good to start with, and I’ve just kept building it and learning as I go,” he said. “It was a steep learning curve for me — but these guys make it worth it. They go every day. It’s great to see the athletes out there — it’s an inspiration to watch them play.”
Michaud, along with midfielders Owen Munroe and Kenny Atlin, are the team’s longest-serving players. The squad includes three female players and eight males. All have significantly improved their fitness levels since Michaud introduced a weekly two-hour Monday night boot camp to prepare them for competition.
“All these players work really hard and it shows — it’s paying off,” said Michaud, holding back tears. “The boot camp we do is a mixture of everything — cardio and strength. I started doing personal training because I was out of shape and on a rough road. I just wasn’t feeling it — I wasn’t the guy I was before.
“So I said to myself, ‘I can fix this to help these guys succeed on the field.’ I took about a month and a half off to focus on my own health and well-being and returned to the field toward the end of last month — and it was clicking right away.”
Getting to Prince George from Whitehorse isn’t easy. It’s a 1,619-kilometre drive that takes 16 hours — or a flight that requires a connection in Vancouver before boarding another plane to PG. The team only travels for provincial or national Special Olympics events.
“In the Yukon, we’re the only team. We scour some local volunteers and play against them,” said Michaud. “We used to play against Whitehorse Minor (youth teams), but now we just play against volunteers in weekly scrimmages. We have a lot of good support from our community.”
As ambassadors for their territory, Smith says the players deserve every bit of that support.
“One of the challenges the Yukon team faces is that, because it’s such a small community, there’s not a lot of competition from other teams — we have to train ourselves, really,” he said. “To come down and face a team like Victoria and beat them — that’s pretty incredible.
“It shows the commitment and dedication this team has put in and the level of passion they have for what they do. Every practice, they just give it — and they want to really elevate each other to make this happen.”
As the only Yukon team, they’ve already qualified for the Special Olympics Canada Summer Games next year in Medicine Hat.
“That’s a big plus for me, because in Quebec it was very tough on me to make nationals toward the end,” said Michaud.
He hopes this first visit to Prince George won’t be his last.
“This is a close-knit community. Everybody is very friendly and it’s a village, where everybody gets out and helps in a game setting like this,” he said. “There’s no shortage of volunteers — it’s well organized, it’s great.”
