For three years, the Terry Wilson Memorial Cup soccer tournament has been a 12-team affair.
This year, due to its overwhelming popularity, it's grown to 20 teams. With close to 225 players involved, it will be the largest Catholic school sporting event ever held in northern B.C.
All but one Catholic elementary school in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Prince George, a vast area of the province from Prince George north to Dawson Creek and from Prince George west to Prince Rupert will be represented on the pitch at Rotary Field at the one-day tournament on Friday.
"We have 20 teams from 10 schools from seven cities," said tournament organizer Terry Murphy.
What happened was Chris Dugdale, the superintendent of Catholic Independent Schools, saw the tournament last year and thought, 'This is great,' and he encouraged all the other schools to come in, so they're all coming in. The only one missing is Smithers [St. Joseph's], they had a previous commitment."
The mixed gender tournament is open to students in Grades 6 and 7. Three Prince George schools -- St. Mary's, Immaculate Conception and Sacred Heart -- are fielding teams. St. Mary's and Immaculate Conception and St. Ann's Academy of Kamloops have each entered three teams, while Annunciation of Prince Rupert, St. Anthony's of Kitimat, Notre Dame of Dawson Creek, and St. Ann's of Quesnel each have two teams involved. Sacred Heart, Quesnel Christian, and Veritas of Terrace, the defending champions, each have one team entered. Quesnel and Kamloops are not part of the Prince George diocese but wanted to send teams.
"The kids in Grade 6 and 7 who play in the tournament go back to their schools and tell the other kids, 'You're going to love this tournament,' and they can't wait to get up to Grade 6 to play in it " said Murphy. "Terry Wilson was all about TEAM [Together Everybody Achieves More] and having fun. Yeah we have the trophy and a couple of prizes, but it's all about having fun and getting to know your teammates and getting to know kids from other cities."
The tournament is named after Wilson, a native of Ireland who played in the North Cariboo Senior Soccer League and established a reputation as one of the city's top defenders. But he will be best remembered for his work with kids as a youth soccer coach, teacher and school principal who went out of his way to encourage kids of all abilities to play the game.
"He'd be loving this, seeing that many teams, he'd be happy," said Murphy, Wilson's longtime friend, who emigrated to Prince George from Northern Ireland with Wilson in 1986. "He'll have a big smile on his face looking down on it."
Wilson moved from Northern Ireland to Prince George in 1986 and became the phys-ed teacher at St. Mary's school, a job he held from 1986-91. He was the principal at Immaculate Conception until 2002, when he moved to Picture Butte, Alta., later settling in Lethbridge. Wilson's sons, Finbar and Aidan, plan to make the trip from Lethbridge for Friday's tournament.
The tournament started in 2011, after Wilson's death the previous year as a result of brain cancer, when school officials at Immaculate Conception and local soccer builders Murphy, Shafeed Rahman, and Vince Buljevic revived a Catholic school event that had gone on for several years in Vanderhoof.
Games start Friday at 9 a.m. The five group winners and the next three teams ranked according to head-to-head play and goal differentials during the round-robin play, advance to the Terry Wilson Cup round. The Terry Wilson Cup final, B and C finals are scheduled to start at 3 p.m.
An activity retreat and supper is planned for tonight at St. Mary's school for all the players.
