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Dozens of high-performance youth soccer athletes came out to the Fieldhouse at the Canada Games Centre for an unveiling of two billboards containing a list of college and university Yukon Soccer Association alumni. Their schools were also listed on the billboards.

Jake Hanson, Technical Director of the Yukon Soccer Association (YSA), organized the event.

鈥淭his was something we thought we鈥檇 try to do for the kids. We鈥檝e got so many young people who are playing high-performance soccer out of the territory now, college, university. And we鈥檝e got twice as many this year than we鈥檝e ever had at one time, with 12 playing out in post-secondary programs this fall. Kind of a new trend are high school players that are making high-performance programs in B.C. and Alberta. 15 years ago we had one and last year we might have had two, and this year, we have like eight. So we just thought it was an opportunity ... both Canada Games boys and girls teams are having Christmas mini-camps with their coaches down south. All the kids are back for Christmas, so we thought this would be kind of fun for them to get together and an opportunity to sort of profile them a little bit.鈥�

Edmonton soccer coaching legend Sean Fleming, the boy鈥檚 team coach, and Carli Tingstad, from Kelowna, assistant coach of the girls鈥� team, were coaching the Canada Games teams鈥� camps and were in attendance at the unveiling.

The kids were impressed to see the names on the billboards.

鈥淲hen we first unveiled these new billboards the kids went over to them and they stood in front of it like about 10 minutes and just looking at it and appeared to be completely mesmerized. It wasn鈥檛 really what I expected but pretty cool to see them so captivated by looking at those lists of players from the Yukon. In some cases, they鈥檙e already on that, and in other cases, they鈥檙e probably thinking they want to get on it at some point, so that鈥檚 pretty neat.鈥�

Vancouver Whitecaps U23 prospect Joe Hansen (and Jake鈥檚 son) was also in attendance. He said it was good to see all the familiar faces.

鈥淟ots of close friends and 鈥� pretty much grew up with all these guys, so it鈥檚 pretty cool to see them moving on and playing at high levels now.鈥�

Ben Kishchuk is one of the athletes honoured with his name on a billboard.

鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty cool to see it there ... just to see all the names that have done it, to know that I鈥檓 part of it is pretty cool.鈥�

Kishchuk is in his first year at Dalhousie University, enrolled in Engineering.

According to the elder Hansen, there are about 24 boys on the Canada Games training squad and about 12 of them are based out of the territory. On the girls鈥� side, about five or six will be leaving the territory after Christmas.

鈥淲e鈥檒l probably have a couple months 鈥� mid-June to mid-August 鈥� to get the teams ready to go and then off to the Games in August.鈥�

The Niagara 2022 Canada Summer Games are taking place at St.Catherines, Ont. Aug. 6-21.