A new Dartmouth soccer team has won a national award and is hoping to win an even bigger prize in August.
The 12 C Storm Boys were chosen last week as one of 15 finalists in BMO's National Team of the Week Contest.
This program celebrates youth soccer by encouraging teams from across the country to demonstrate team pride, spirit, community commitment and passion for the game.
The Storm Boys manager, Alexa Crawley, submitted an essay about her team. She said she knew she had a good group of boys, but was still surprised when she got the word this week.
"Most of the boys started on the under 10 summer team and then went on to play on the 12 C winter team. We lost almost all of our games during the under ten, but the Storm Family and coaches kept encouraging the boys,"she said.
When Crawley submitted the application she said it was not hard to see how her team fit the qualifications.
"They showed such encouragement to one another, you could hear them calling out to each other from the sidelines," she said.
The team was always encouraged to keep their chins up,practice hard and never lose their integrity in playing soccer.
"They helped out the under 6 and eights, wore their practice jerseys with pride to school and even met two weeks ago to help clean up the Eric Graves field," said Crawley. "They ended up picking up several bags of garbage in the end."
The boys also decided to help out Feeding Others of Dartmouth.
"The Storm families donated food and we took the boys on a tour of Margaret's House," she said.
The prize for being one of the 15 finalists in Canada was a cash prize of $500 for team expenses, a track suit for each boy and a donation of $500 to their charity.
Daniel Crawley is one of the 12 C Storm Boys. The 11-year-old has been playing soccer for six years .
"I really love playing the game and helping out with the younger players," said Crawley.
Winners of the overall contest will be determined by voting online.
The big prize winner will receive $125,000 towards refurbishing a local soccer field, a trip for the team to a professional soccer match and a donation of $5,000 to their charity.
"I would really like to win that prize," said Crawley, who attends Southdale- North Woodside school. "It would be great."
To vote for the team, starting Aug. 13, go to community.bmo.com/soccer/team-of-the-week-contest-home
