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Premier [FVSL] Premier 2021/2022 Predictions, Results & Banter

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Canucks4Ever

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A couple of quick points:

1. On TWU, my understanding is that they have not "joined" the league. They are merely playing each FVSL Premier side once, mid-week, in conjunction with the season. I would assume they were added to the the table for scheduling purposes with the FVSL software. This is also supported by the fact that TWU only have an eight game schedule, not 21 like everyone else.

The merits of playing an extra game mid-week in the middle of the season when you also need to prepare for a weekend fixture can be debated. However, my understanding is that the teams were informed of this at least a month or so ago and that the FVSL considers this as a great opportunity to grow the league's presence.

One assumes that this supports the notion that TWU will be a L1BC franchise. I have sources who have told me they will be, but BC Soccer is ostensibly ready to excommunicate anyone who lets L1BC info leak pre-announcement, so it is difficult to confirm.

2. The Premier Academy U23 - Premier FC - FCT Academy journey is somewhat concerning and I would guess the league is also disappointed about the way things have gone. That being said, it was slightly beyond their control. They had a commitment from Premier to come into the league and clearly Premier overestimated their abilities. The alternative would be to have a team in your top division outright fold and I cannot imagine they would be taking any less flack for that.

Now, it can be debated about why the FVSL were in a position to hand a spot out to a team like Premier Academy in the first place and was it worth the risk. On the latter point, the league brought in five new teams with somewhat comparable resumes and four of them have more or less worked out. The former point is a much broader discussion and one that has had some ink spilled on it already, though I am sure there is much more that could be said.

Once it happened, I, for one, am not sure how the league should or could have handled it differently. As for the issue about two teams from the same club in Premier, that is certainly a hard and fast rule in the VMSL. However, if memory serves the FVSL set that rule aside circa 2015 or 2016 maybe when it allowed both Port Moody Rangers and Port Moody Gunners in Premier in the same season.

3. The comments about the Pak Cup and Provincial spots are intriguing to me. I have long been on record that I believe you should need some level of journey or context to appreciate winning a trophy that is over 100 years old. By and large these teams do not have that. I remember when Abby won the Pak Cup the last time it was awarded in 2019 and it was the club's first trophy in forever and it was that particular group's first major accomplishment. Great to see. Similarly, there was the season Aldergrove came out of nowhere to win the Pak Cup and nab a Prov Cup spot after a disappointing season following their run to the Provincial Final. Awesome story.

Then there was Tigers (now of the FVSL) winning the Imperial Cup back in 2018. Did they want to win that game in that moment? Sure. But after it was over, did they care about winning that trophy and all the history? Not really. A couple of pictures with the trophy and then mom and dad drove them home. Training on Tuesday. No dressing room celebration. No night out with the cup. It was all rather underwhelming.

Should the Pak Cup winner get a Provincial Spot this season? I am willing to bet it will be either Abby or Tigers who win it and that they will already be going to Provincials. The bigger question is how is that fifth and maybe even fourth place FVSL qualifier going to fair against sides from other leagues? A scenario where Faly or Mirco Footie sneak into Provincials only to get pasted by double digits by Metro Ford or BB5/CCB is not unthinkable and that is probably not a great look for the league (that said Micro Footie did beat Abbotsford leaving some regular contributors to this forum rather quiet about that outing...).
 

dezza

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@Canucks4Ever, that's neither a couple points nor quick ones.

Port Moody Gunners (the O.G. PoMo team) and Rangers (orphans from PoCo) were not run by the same people. The situation now is quite different.

And I would not consider Premier Academy's resume (5th place in the Ultra League) equivalent or even remotely close to any of the other new teams.
 

Abby United

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This current abby group has won 3 pak cups but 1 st league title in 2019
A couple of quick points:

1. On TWU, my understanding is that they have not "joined" the league. They are merely playing each FVSL Premier side once, mid-week, in conjunction with the season. I would assume they were added to the the table for scheduling purposes with the FVSL software. This is also supported by the fact that TWU only have an eight game schedule, not 21 like everyone else.

The merits of playing an extra game mid-week in the middle of the season when you also need to prepare for a weekend fixture can be debated. However, my understanding is that the teams were informed of this at least a month or so ago and that the FVSL considers this as a great opportunity to grow the league's presence.

One assumes that this supports the notion that TWU will be a L1BC franchise. I have sources who have told me they will be, but BC Soccer is ostensibly ready to excommunicate anyone who lets L1BC info leak pre-announcement, so it is difficult to confirm.

2. The Premier Academy U23 - Premier FC - FCT Academy journey is somewhat concerning and I would guess the league is also disappointed about the way things have gone. That being said, it was slightly beyond their control. They had a commitment from Premier to come into the league and clearly Premier overestimated their abilities. The alternative would be to have a team in your top division outright fold and I cannot imagine they would be taking any less flack for that.

Now, it can be debated about why the FVSL were in a position to hand a spot out to a team like Premier Academy in the first place and was it worth the risk. On the latter point, the league brought in five new teams with somewhat comparable resumes and four of them have more or less worked out. The former point is a much broader discussion and one that has had some ink spilled on it already, though I am sure there is much more that could be said.

Once it happened, I, for one, am not sure how the league should or could have handled it differently. As for the issue about two teams from the same club in Premier, that is certainly a hard and fast rule in the VMSL. However, if memory serves the FVSL set that rule aside circa 2015 or 2016 maybe when it allowed both Port Moody Rangers and Port Moody Gunners in Premier in the same season.

3. The comments about the Pak Cup and Provincial spots are intriguing to me. I have long been on record that I believe you should need some level of journey or context to appreciate winning a trophy that is over 100 years old. By and large these teams do not have that. I remember when Abby won the Pak Cup the last time it was awarded in 2019 and it was the club's first trophy in forever and it was that particular group's first major accomplishment. Great to see. Similarly, there was the season Aldergrove came out of nowhere to win the Pak Cup and nab a Prov Cup spot after a disappointing season following their run to the Provincial Final. Awesome story.

Then there was Tigers (now of the FVSL) winning the Imperial Cup back in 2018. Did they want to win that game in that moment? Sure. But after it was over, did they care about winning that trophy and all the history? Not really. A couple of pictures with the trophy and then mom and dad drove them home. Training on Tuesday. No dressing room celebration. No night out with the cup. It was all rather underwhelming.

Should the Pak Cup winner get a Provincial Spot this season? I am willing to bet it will be either Abby or Tigers who win it and that they will already be going to Provincials. The bigger question is how is that fifth and maybe even fourth place FVSL qualifier going to fair against sides from other leagues? A scenario where Faly or Mirco Footie sneak into Provincials only to get pasted by double digits by Metro Ford or BB5/CCB is not unthinkable and that is probably not a great look for the league (that said Micro Footie did beat Abbotsford leaving some regular contributors to this forum rather quiet about that outing...).
 

Canucks4Ever

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@Canucks4Ever, that's neither a couple points nor quick ones.

Port Moody Gunners (the O.G. PoMo team) and Rangers (orphans from PoCo) were not run by the same people. The situation now is quite different.

And I would not consider Premier Academy's resume (5th place in the Ultra League) equivalent or even remotely close to any of the other new teams.
Debated changing it to "a few".

I would argue taken individually they are "quick" - as a whole no. But when is anything I post not in the TLDR category?

Sure, fifth place Ultra League vs. 1st place VMSL U21, vs. mid-table VMSL U21. Plus Caps, who I think we all expected to be somewhat more effective and Tigers who we all know about.

Point is it was a young private academy that supposedly had resources and top level coaching. And the two other teams that came in with that framework are keeping their heads above water - subject to any argument you wish to make about the size of the pool.

My point was the league needed teams. They found teams externally because only three existing teams wanted to play Premier. Four out of five have been fine - subject to further evaluation if and when those teams play against the other leagues...
 

Canucks4Ever

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This current abby group has won 3 pak cups but 1 st league title in 2019
Ok sorry. I'll retract my point about being happy for Abby winning in 2019?

FWIW - The FVSL Archives only list to 2012. A scouring of the TTP Archives reveals that Abby look to have won the Pak Cup in 2013 and 2015 prior to 2019. I will defer to you knowledge of the team regarding who, if anyone, remains from those 2013 & 2015 iterations to the 2019-current squad.

Also I believe their League Title was 2020 - right before the season shut down due to Covid. If I recall Port Moody were the 2019 League Winners.
 

Regs

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Ok sorry. I'll retract my point about being happy for Abby winning in 2019?
That sounds like a sorry/not sorry.

30 Rock Meow GIF
 

Dude

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It's surreal seeing what this rain has done to our infrastructure in such short order. It's nuts.

Hope all our friends living out East of Aldergrove are doing OK.
 

Dude

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The FV has had this before and eventually water recedes. It's just, a pile of diarrhea icing on a shite cake for the Province. I'm sick to my stomach over the even greater impact hyper inflation will have this winter.
 

Dude

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The fire was the Tire fire at FVSL headquarters.

Too soon?

Went to the site today just to see how things are going. First, congrats to @YoAdrian for being the first to reach 10 goals. That the golden touch is back in the boots. You know, they call him the Abbotsford Ryan Gould. True story.

Could not help but notice Surrey FC Royals added to the table, much like TWU has been added in (Side note: first time SFC has been in FVSL Premier since @2003 ish when they were relegated out, very different club now). Does anyone know how this works? TWU is showing a point on the table from a draw.

Regardless, suspect the league is on hold here minimum another week to allow players / families in the East part of the Valley to get out from under this disaster they are living in right now.
 

Canucks4Ever

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The fire was the Tire fire at FVSL headquarters.

Too soon?

Went to the site today just to see how things are going. First, congrats to @YoAdrian for being the first to reach 10 goals. That the golden touch is back in the boots. You know, they call him the Abbotsford Ryan Gould. True story.

Could not help but notice Surrey FC Royals added to the table, much like TWU has been added in (Side note: first time SFC has been in FVSL Premier since @2003 ish when they were relegated out, very different club now). Does anyone know how this works? TWU is showing a point on the table from a draw.

Regardless, suspect the league is on hold here minimum another week to allow players / families in the East part of the Valley to get out from under this disaster they are living in right now.
Re Eastern Valley - I believe the affected teams are able to play at their discretion.

The rumour I have heard is that the FVSL is hoping to add both TWU and Surrey FC to Premier next season. Surrey FC are Douglas College. Assuming it all works out, that would give the FVSL two BCL1 teams in "Unity" (TWU) and "Altitude" (Faly) plus Whitecaps U19 (I believe it is their U23s in BCL1?) and TSS II in Division 1 - not sure if they would be interested in stepping into Prem - presumably FCT Academy will be consolidated out of Prem and into Tigers B after this year? Chilliwack/Tzeachten are also looking like a potential candidate to return to Prem as they are walking Division 1.

Regardless of whether or not they join full time next fall, both TWU and SFC/Douglas I gather will be playing mid-week schedules once through the order the rest of the way this season. The games are worth real points, so essentially the teams have a chance to earn "bonus" points. Not sure how Abby or Tigers might feel if the title is decided by who was able to go to Trinity mid-week and get a win, but it adds a layer of intrigue I suppose.

Of course FVSL was hoping to have 10 teams this past September and that did not come to pass. So, probably a good idea to wait and see on this one. Plus there is always the chance that Surrey/Langley/Abby/other decide they want a shot at one of the VMSL's Division 1 spots.

Still, as I said in the other thread, FVSL certainly not sitting idly by and drifting off in the wind. Whether it is enough to convince teams like Abby there is a future here and whether they can get casual fans like @Dude back into the stands, only time will tell...
 

Dude

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Re Eastern Valley - I believe the affected teams are able to play at their discretion.

The rumour I have heard is that the FVSL is hoping to add both TWU and Surrey FC to Premier next season. Surrey FC are Douglas College. Assuming it all works out, that would give the FVSL two BCL1 teams in "Unity" (TWU) and "Altitude" (Faly) plus Whitecaps U19 (I believe it is their U23s in BCL1?) and TSS II in Division 1 - not sure if they would be interested in stepping into Prem - presumably FCT Academy will be consolidated out of Prem and into Tigers B after this year? Chilliwack/Tzeachten are also looking like a potential candidate to return to Prem as they are walking Division 1.

Regardless of whether or not they join full time next fall, both TWU and SFC/Douglas I gather will be playing mid-week schedules once through the order the rest of the way this season. The games are worth real points, so essentially the teams have a chance to earn "bonus" points. Not sure how Abby or Tigers might feel if the title is decided by who was able to go to Trinity mid-week and get a win, but it adds a layer of intrigue I suppose.

Of course FVSL was hoping to have 10 teams this past September and that did not come to pass. So, probably a good idea to wait and see on this one. Plus there is always the chance that Surrey/Langley/Abby/other decide they want a shot at one of the VMSL's Division 1 spots.

Still, as I said in the other thread, FVSL certainly not sitting idly by and drifting off in the wind. Whether it is enough to convince teams like Abby there is a future here and whether they can get casual fans like @Dude back into the stands, only time will tell...
For me, time will tell, and I'll put my hand up at some point and admit I'm wrong if this plays out as the FVSL Executive / ED hope.

Ultimately, I'm "Pro Player" first, player development dovetails off that as well. I've always been outspoken on that piece in that we do / did have a broken pathway in BC. What the FVSL is attempting to do here is build that pathways alongside L1BC, but in doing so, they are casting off the clubs- and their players- that have built the league. I didn't play in Premier long. Made my way in too late, and was a squad player. Not ashamed of that at all, but I did make my way in. In the new FVSL, there is not only no place for someone like me who came in at 28 or whatever, but no place for a lot of guys I played with. Arguably, there would have been a place for me coming out of college directly, but the whole reason I didn't step right into Premier out of college (successfully, anyways, had a brief stint in a VMSL squad that was relegated the same year) was because I wasn't ready to compete for a spot. Too many really good players that were in the 25-32 ish age range that were not going to let go of their spot. I had to pay my dues, get stronger, and I get it. It was the same when I was in Premier....we saw a stream of kids every year coming into camp out of UCFV (UFV now) or Trinity that would show up at training, and most of them would be sent down to a lower squad, or try out somewhere else, because they could not displace the established guys. I will say this, LFC4 made very good use of that pipeline (as well as Western Washington), definitely chose players that, erm, encouraged guys like me to play Div. 1 earlier than we wanted, and built a hell of a program. Not bad for a guy with potatoes for feet, bad hair, and terrible fashion sense.

But...we could do that. We had a club with multiple levels to move guys up and down. it worked. Difunctional at times? Absolutely, but it worked for us.

Now? Those established guys are mostly going to now be pushed out before they are ready to let go, and before their playing capabilities expire. Good? Bad? Time will tell. I do know this: making the pathway is a good thing, but making it an easy pathway is not necessarily a good thing.

My big grievances are this:
  1. The FVSL is trying to do all this overnight. Not many years ago, the FVSL looked like a proper set up of 10 teams, with Pro / Rel, included Golden Ears, Chilliwack, Aldergrove, Langley, Surrey FC, GN Sport, Poco FC (The beloved ED as the coach, actually enjoyed a beer w/ him after one match), Coastal, and Delta. Really strong squads with really strong, well known players that could play anywhere in either league. In div 1 below, really strong clubs like Abbotsford, Port Moody, North Delta (w/ @LION featured as a young up and coming striker), Sikh Temple, ACBC, all pushing to get into the top flight, as well as a powerhouse SFC Rangers team that refused promotion every season to start this whole mess (thanks @Rangerforever, your fault ;) ). Pretty much all these clubs had multiple teams in multiple divisions to use as a Cat system, or actual CAT Teams. Now? Who's really pushing to get in? Seems the league is actually setting up a closed shop here.
  2. They way the league has treated these established clubs in the last 4-5 years is a joke. A slap in the face to players who built the league. The ED didn't build the league, the players did. It's a slap in the face to the builders that came before us. This isn't a guess, I receive texts and calls all the time from guys within the league(s), guys that are now out but played a strong hand in building it, and guys who have moved already as they simply did not believe in the direction, and had no respect for the leadership. That's a common theme.
So....for me, the FVSL as I knew it is gone. Dead. I am supportive of the grandfather clubs still in it, and that's why I'm saying, make your moves now, if you can. The landscape is changing, and if you can't read the writing on the wall, you need to go back to your ABCs. Read the mission statement here....does the FVSL have a similar mission statement? Definitely not, not if you look at the evidence over the past 5 years of major grandfather clubs evaporating from the FVSL premier landscape. https://vmslsoccer.com/ .

"The purpose of the Society is to develop, promote, extend and foster the game of soccer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada and to safeguard the interests of the clubs and teams competing in the VMSL, BC's premier amateur league."

The new FVSL? Firstly, I hope they change the name, they don't deserve to carry it, and don't deserve to compete for the Pakenham Cup. The Pak should be fought for by the best amateur men's teams in the FV, and sorry, if you push out all the best players, then it's no longer relevant. just look at this history: https://www.fraservalleysoccer.com/Archives/PakenhamCupWinners.htm .

If this initiative proves to be successful, and players coming out of college / university have a better pathway and opportunities to be scouted into Tier II and above? Better shop window, and it plays a role in replicating the success of L1 Ontario, and the players they've pushed on to great things? Hell yeah, I'll be supportive. I'd have to be a hypocrite not to be. I wish them sincerest best of luck, but deplore the way they are going about doing this.
 
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