Chris Puglia
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 28/04) - This weekend may be one of the most highly anticipated in Yellowknife.

Across the NWT and Nunavut soccer players are counting the seconds until they arrive in Yellowknife for the annual Super Soccer Tournament.

Super Soccer begins tonight with local teams getting some competition out of the way before visiting players arrive for full action that starts tomorrow. The tournament runs Saturday and Sunday in all gyms in the city. - NNSL file photo

The event is quickly becoming the Arctic Winter Games of soccer.

This year 147 teams and nearly 1,500 athletes will pour into town for the tournament.

But where the most recent Arctic Winter Games used 5,000 volunteers to organize 2,500 athletes, Super Soccer calls on just 10 volunteers.

Organizer Fraser Oliver said the team count is about the same as last year.

What is different is the age split.

"We have about 20 more teams in the high school categories," said Oliver.

Which means there are fewer teams at the younger level.

Oliver said there isn't a trend, that's just how it worked out this year.

Tournament organizers are also welcoming back teams that have been absent for the tournament for a while or are coming for the first time.

Fort McPherson is back after a seven-year hiatus and Holman is bringing its first team.

As the tournament and soccer's popularity grows, more communities bring more teams.

Deline is bringing three teams instead of its usual one.

Smaller communities coming

"The smaller communities enjoy coming to the tournament. It's the whole package: you get to play soccer and get to the big city," said Oliver.

"Principals use this tournament as a tool. They say stay in school and you get to go to Super Soccer."

It may not seem like significant motivation, but it works.

For the past several years the tournament has averaged around 150 teams and Oliver said there is no more room to grow.

"We're close to maxed out," he said.

"We use almost all the gyms in the city. We don't use Mildred Hall or NJ Macpherson if we can help it because they are so small."

For some that would lend weight to the push to build an indoor soccer facility.

Oliver, however, said the money could be better spent to build a gym similar to the one at Weledeh school.

"If Mildred Hall gets a gym like that, now you've helped soccer, and basketball and volleyball," he said.

With 1,500 more youths in town, there is concern about the possibility of inappropriate behaviour, but Oliver said dances have been organized to keep the visitors busy.

"The kids like that socializing," he said.

Business boom

It's not just the players who are excited. The tournament has city retailers, restaurants, and hotels seeing green.

It may be Subway owner Brad Anstey's favourite week of the year.

Last year his customer count was 2,200 patrons.

"This is the biggest weekend of the year," he said.

"We were on ITV News in Edmonton because of this weekend. This period we have the highest volume of sales for any Subway in Canada."

Sandra Stirling, manager of Overlander Sports, said they get a huge influx of traffic.

"They come in and buy soccer shoes, shin pads and all the things they need from us," she said.

"Soccer sales for a day would at least triple."

Alicia Seltzer, manager of Bootlegger, said they get a lot of business, too.

"The customer flow definitely increases," she said.

Last year the store doubled its customer flow on the Thursday, tripled it on the Friday and almost doubled it on the Saturday.

"With everybody being from out of town it's like...oh my god let's shop," she said.