Winners of the CPSL Seventh Anniversary Annual Awards Banquet held Saturday October 9th, 2004 at La Contessa Banquet Hall in North York. Attendance was about 120.
After dinner CPSL president Stan Adamson told a few jokes that were somewhat like a 'roast' in their sting about the sad-sack Durham Flames, coin flips and the Field Turf at the Ontario Soccer Centre.
1. Referee of the Year (presented by chief of referees Walter Kirchner) ---Amato De Luca
De Luca has been a FIFA referee for two years and alread has 13 internationals including USA vs Jamaica, USA vs El Salvador, and Portugal vs Brazil. He is already ranked the #2 official in Concacaf!
2. Coach of the Year (presented by FIFA executive/broadcaster Dick Howard)---Pat Hilton of Windsor Border Stars
expansion team winning the Open Canada Cup and making the league playoffs.
3. Runners up in the East---Metro Lions
4. Eastern Champions---Toronto Supra
5. Runners up in the West---Toronto Croatia
6. Western Champions---Hamilton Thunder
7. Top Scorer---Paul Munster of London City (award accepted by team physio Shawn Kevin who had to watch Munster's recovery from a career ending injury from a prior year.
8. Open Canada Cup Finalist--Ottawa St Anthony Italia (award accepted by OSA official Burt Lobo)
Ottawa were one of 12 amateur teams that entered this year's Cup competition.
9. Open Canada Cup Winner--Windsor Border Stars (accepted by owner/player Jeff Hodgson)
10. Fair Play Award--Durham Storm
this was a trophy for least yellow and red cards for the season.
11. Rookie of the Year---Paul Munster from London City
ooh. probably someone we're never see again based on hearing he's trying out for teams in the Czech Republic. He's from Northern Ireland so he could try out for any European team. Last year's winner was 'veteran' player Darren Tilley who didn't return to the league.
12. Goaltender of the Year (presented by Dick Howard)--George Azcurra from Toronto Croatia who accepted the award dressed formally in black the same colours he usually wears as goaltender.
Dick Howard also comments that in two years Toronto Croatia will be celebrating their 50th anniversary. He also saluted the woman of the game. Wives who put up with their spouses and the many women's officials in the game.
13. Defender of the Year (presented by Burt Lobo)---Justin Marshall of Windsor Border Stars
yeah I watched him this year in the backline and running the wings to start rushes and taking many of the upfield dead ball kicks.
14. referee official Walter Krichner gave a special award to the female officials of the CPSL. This year the league had an 'all woman' crew of Stephanie Dan Haan, Deb O'Hara, Lisa McNeil, and Tamara Reitsma officiating the Hamilton Thunder vs St Catharines Roma Wolves game and the players supposedly uttered no four letters for the entire ninety minutes. Each of these women were presented with a special plaque.
15. MVP of the Year (presented by league president Vince Ursini)---Danny Amaral of Toronto Supra
16. Presidents Award (presented by Vince Ursini)---Bruno Ierullo of North York Astros
given to the top executive/organizer.
Now Vince Ursini gave a speech about the state of the league although we now had to compete against the blaring dance music of the wedding dinner downstairs pumping through the floor.
hilights:
thanked the officials, and the Windsor Border Stars for their success.
he's having discussions with BC and Alberta teams to enter the Open Canada Cup next year.
he complained about the CSA ignoring the professional game in Canada (they only admin National teams and the amateur game) and therefor the CPSL will have to do it ourselves.
the two international teams the league hosted this year Boavista Portugal and Portmore United Jamaica came off as a great success.
congratulated George Azcurra for winning goaltender of the year with quip that he'd run it for two years in a row then didn't win last year when he got married.
he said female referees made no difference to the games this year which was a good thing.
one reasong the league emphasized female officials this year is the CPSL is trying to launch a woman's league in 2005 or more likely 2006 but still has some political hurdles.
he then thanked a barrage of names like Clifford Dell, Walter Kirchner, Stan Adamson, the Brampton Hitmen organization for hosted this year's championship, Bruno Ierullo (Astros owner), Julian Carr (from their television show The CPSL Soccer Show, he was here videoing the presentation), club owners, and the winner of Monday's Vaughan Shooters vs Toronto Croatia game.
17. Stan Adamson presents a special award to Enio Perruzza "The Voice of the CPSL" who has been the announcer for the North York Astros for 14 years. [Enio told me earlier in the day he has announced around forty games this year when we consider the Astros and Shooters home games at Ontario Soccer Centre and the Open Cup games he did].
18. Lastly OSA president Colin Linford gave a short speech.
he knows the CPSL is really the only Canadian professional league (remember the A-League has only Canadian teams but is still American run) and wants to make the CPSL voice heard. He wants the CPSL to expand across Canada and it must stay a flag bearer.
Earlier in the evening I'd asked Border Stars execs about their great attendance in both Windsor and Michigan (some overlap of crowds, no border hassles by customs officials. crowds of 1500 hundred some games compared to the 'under 100' that I see at too many Toronto games) and the struggle of getting enough players on their roster to come for their Toronto area roadtrips.
Calin Pintea and Al Perreira have had a pretty successful year running the Soccer On-Line website. Certainly I've been happy knowing the names on the roster and officials a few days before the games. Posting my game reports to their website certainly has made me more well known by players, fans, and officials then I was when I just posted to just the Voyageurs message board and my own web page.
I asked Charles Gbeke (Ottawa Wizards, Toronto Lynx, Hamilton Thunder) about playing next year but he's already got his agent working on some tryouts in Europe.
The trophies (from sponsor Olympic Trophies) looked pretty good again this year with most molded into a chiseled maple leaf just like the CPSL logo. Dozens of trophies were not presented but they were for individual players who played on the winning and runner up teams--winning awards were almost twice the size of runner up awards. Fortunately there were cardboard boxes so the awards could be loaded up and distributed by the individual teams. There was no swarming of teams to the front this year to pick up team awards. Actually there weren't a lot of players here this year.
Rocket Robin
robing@eol.ca
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