Yorkton United Impact Going Back to Nationals

It's been nearly a month since the Yorkton United Impact Men's Soccer team won Provincials in Regina, and at that point they thought they'd booked their ticket to Nationals for a second straight year. They have, but it wasn't as easy as they thought. Yorkton went to the final fair and square, but the Saskatoon team they beat in the final beat a Regina club in the semi, while playing with an ineligible player. Regina protested, saying the final should be re-played between themselves and Yorkton, but it appears that's not going to happen, and the United Impact can concentrate on heading to Newfoundland in October. For more, I talked to veteran player/Assistant Manager Andy Wyatt.

CS: Well after a little controversy it looks like the Yorkton United Impact are going back to Nationals, but it was a process wasn't it?

Andy Wyatt: Yes it was, there were some very unusual proceedings, it was a little different than it was last year for us, but thankfully we've finally received confirmation we are Provincial Soccer League champs, and we're going to Newfoundland for Nationals to represent Saskatchewan.

CS: So a few weeks ago (July 26-27) you go to Regina for Provincials, you get to the final fair and square, but the team you beat in the final had an illegal player, and that's what kind of stirred things up with the other semi-final team.

AW: Exactly. We had played Saskatoon in the final, and it was after the final was over, and after we'd been handed our gold medals. It was a hard-fought game by the way, it went to penalty kicks, and then later that night and early the next morning, it was learned there was an ineligible player in the semi-final game, and the team that lost that game then protested and wanted a chance to play us in the final instead. So that's the basis of what started the ball rolling of some very difficult times to try and work it out.

CS: And really it was just finally worked out on Saturday wasn't it?

AW: Yeah it was just resolved this past Saturday. What happened was after their protest, Sask Soccer went and put together a board, to make a decision, and surprising to all of us, they ruled in favour of the Regina team and said we had to re-play them, even though we didn't do anything wrong. We had a lot of problems with that decision, the most important being, they didn't even bother talking to us and getting our side of the story, and had very little communication with the Saskatoon team either, regarding the illegal player, they just seemed to make the decision off the cuff. So we had to go through a formal appeal procedure to Sask Soccer, and that took a lot of time and a lot of work from some of the members of our team. So that appeal was heard on Saturday, and it took them all of 15 minutes to rule in our favour and set things right and declare us the champs.

CS: But it still sounds like Regina's going to appeal it yet again, this time on a National level?

AW: Yes, they threatened to do it at the end, they interrupted the decision of the appeal committee when they knew it wasn't going their way, and stormed out and said they're going to appeal this to Canada Soccer. In my opinion they've got no chance whatsoever. Looking at all the rules, everything's in our favour. The Regina team basically has little or no argument in getting that game re-played. So we're not too concerned about the appeal going to Canada Soccer, because they'll get all the facts before them before making the decision, and like I said it's all in our favour. So we're preparing to go to Nationals, and we're behind the 8-ball when it comes to that because of these delays, we've got a lot of fundraising to do in very little time.

CS: So let's assume you're going, it's in the Maritimes, right? St. John's?

AW: St. John's, Newfoundland, yep.

CS: And you did go last year (to Halifax) as well, and I talked to one of your other players, Kevin Krause at the start of the year and I know he said you didn't make out as well as you'd have liked, but the experience should serve you well if you got back again this year.

AW: It should serve us well. No, we didn't do as well as we would have liked, but we have a very young team, we're still young, and it was the first time for everyone on our team except I believe two players to play at the National level. It's a higher level, but part of it is also about being mentally prepared and ready, and some of the younger guys on our team were in awe of the surroundings and the organizations involved. One of the big parts is the mental aspect and we were a little behind there. We competed in every game and were quite close in every game, we just couldn't score, that was our downfall, and we lost all of our games. I'm expecting our team to be stronger this year and more prepared, and we're hoping to do a lot better.

CS: And it's not until October (8th to 13th), so you've got almost 2 months to fill, your provincials are all done, so what do you do between now and then?

AW: That's another disadvantage we have in Saskatchewan, we declare our champions quite early. Places like Ontario, B.C., Manitoba, they end just shortly before Nationals, so they've got lots of games. We're going to be doing some hard training on our own, and we're also going to try to find games against other teams throughout the province, and try to get game-ready for Nationals.