MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - A region-wide soccer club has formed recently and will be competing at the tier 3 level in Calgary.
Mountain View United FC (Football Club) is about halfway through its first season and is running boys' teams at both the U-13 and U-15 levels.
Manager Jason Drent said the teams were formed to allow local players the chance to play against stronger competition.
"We put this soccer team together this year," said Drent. "We're a U-13 team. There is also a U-15 team. We had a lot of interest from players and parents last soccer season. How it works in most of the rural communities in Alberta is we play in tier 4.
"We wanted more competition in both of those age categories. So a lot of the parents and players agreed that this year would be a great year to go up a tier and actually play soccer in the Calgary Soccer League."
Drent said they received a lot of encouragement from both Olds Minor Soccer and the surrounding Mountain View County area.
"We've been really successful so far," he said. "Both teams are doing really well. The boys are really excited. It's just that extra level of competition that the boys wanted to have. You can't really get that outside of the bigger centres. It was a great opportunity for us to do that.
"We're pretty excited because we've got those new soccer fields coming up in Olds in the next year or so. Soccer is really starting to grow and it was important for us to provide more opportunities for the kids."
Drent said that after a couple of weeks of pre-season training the teams began games in mid-June and are at about the midway point in their seasons.
"We go all the way until the long weekend in August," he said. "Then we have a final tournament to wrap up the season. It's a little different than the typical tier 4 where you start end of April and go until the end of June."
Both teams practise twice a week in Olds and play games once or twice a week. In addition, the teams play tournaments as well on weekends. The players are from throughout Mountain View County.
"I think we total up to close to 18 games once we're done and probably in the 20s when we go to our tournaments," he said. "It's a pretty long season but the boys really enjoy it. We're pretty competitive in that league. It was a good choice."
