Photo by Jason Pike
By Jason Pike
Burin, NL – Certain names are synonymous with soccer in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, none more so than the St Lawrence Laurentians. Once named the soccer capital of Canada for winning more titles than any other community in the country per capita. But those days are nothing more than dust and shadows now. It has been 8 years since the St Lawrence Laurentians challenge Cup squad has captured a provincial challenge Cup Championship, but even then the Laurentians weren’t truly a St Lawrence team. It was more of a team based in St Lawrence. Gathering up players from other towns and other places to keep the tradition alive, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking them for that, but I think the real analysis of what happened to soccer on the Burin Peninsula requires a little more analyzing.
In the early to mid-2000s we started noticing a massive decline in the amount of youth players coming up through in the system, and the St Lawrence Laurentians players joined with from Lamaline, Grand Bank Gee Bee’s, Burin Eagles and Marystown Mariners, all combined to have enough players to enter provincial competitions under the banner of BPSA. Under the careful guidance of Marc Pittman, who has sacrificed the majority of his free time while juggling a family and a job, he kept soccer alive on the Burin Peninsula and I firmly believe that without him and the amount of effort he is put in game soccer would be snuffed out on the Peninsula long ago.
Why did this happen you ask? Well I guess there’s a number of reasons, family’s got smaller, people were having less kids, lack of work on the Burin Peninsula forced a lot of migration to mainly Alberta, BC and many other places, never to return. After the 90s there wasn’t really a lot left to work with, so concessions were made just to keep the sport alive.
In the 90s the rivalries on the Burin Peninsula were nothing short of epic between teams like the Lawn Shamrocks and the St Lawrence Laurentians as well as the Burin Eagles and the Marystown Mariners and let’s not forget the off and on entry of the Grand Bank Gee Bee’s. Names like Junior Edwards, Vince Pickett, Gord Dunphy and Myles Kennedy, the man who led the Lawn Shamrocks to their only challenge cup title in the history of the league. These were the commonly discussed figures in the soccer community, but those days are long since gone and now all that remains is the St Lawrence Laurentians, who year after year, try to remain relevant and rebuild to a championship squad which becomes more difficult as time goes on.
But there may be some hope for soccer on the Peninsula yet. The Unified BPSA team of players from all around the peninsula is slowly changing. As St Lawrence, Burin, Marystown and Grand Bank, all now boast their own individual minor soccer programs and the numbers are looking good and seemingly growing with more than 600 youth participants.
I guess the real key now is to keep them engaged and involved, not letting them grow out of the game by create an environment where they want to be and where they want to be successful. I think it would be amazing to see the Peninsula thrive again with multiple teams in senior soccer and becoming more than just a shadow of what used to be.
If things keep progressing the way they have been then all signs point to yes.
