If you notice some unfamiliar faces around Airdrie this weekend, don't be alarmed.  

They're likely one of the thousands of soccer players, parents or guardians, team officials, referees or spectators that are here for the annual Summit Cup Tournament, hosted by the Airdrie and District Soccer Association (ADSA).

The Executive Director of ADSA, Melissa Collinson said the tournament does wonders for the Airdrie economy.

"We have 260 teams that are registered in this tournament and really only about 20 of them are Airdrie teams so we're looking at 240 teams which pretty much equates to about 4,000 to 5,000 players along with their parents and guardians.  We also have referees that come into referee for the tournament so I would guesstimate that we're looking at around 7,000 to 8,000 people, easily.  I do know that all of the hotels that have been working with us are full, full, full this weekend as well."

Bentley said teams in the tournament are coming from across B.C. and Alberta and a lot of them come back year after year because they enjoy playing in the tournament so much.  

"We do, obviously, because of the nice, close proximity have a large number of teams from Calgary.  Then we've got Red Deer, Edmonton, Cranbrook, Kamloops, Sherwood Park, and lots of other places.  About two years ago this tournament was sitting at around 75 or 80 that used to come and last year they hit their largest at 262 teams and this year we're at 260 and I do know that a large number of those are returning teams.  The Calgary teams, especially the U-10's, this tournament is a great tournament for them because it's close enough to home but it also has that out of town feel to it."

With so many teams involved, so many fields also need to be involved and the Summit Cup uses the majority of them in Airdrie.  Play will go at Monklands, Heron's Crossing, East Lake, Ravenswood, Good Shepherd and Meadowbrook.  The tourney starts tonight (June 8) and continues through the weekend.  The medal games aren't expected to wrap up until about 7:30 pm Sunday evening.

This year, the first two days of the tourney, Friday and Saturday, are looking beautiful weather-wise.  Sunday is forecast to be considerably cooler with showers.  However, when you compare it to last year's weather, this year is looking wonderful.  The entire weekend was rain soaked in 2017 prompting teams to make light of last year's weather when they registered. Collinson said, "They were just bugging the tournament coordinator asking her, 'Hey, did you order great weather this year?'  We've just built some really good relationships throughout the provinces." 

 

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