One year ago, a grass roots movement began - a consortium of service provides led by the Youth Agencies Alliance (YAA) met with the Manitoba Soccer Association (MSA), the Winnipeg Youth Soccer Association (WYSA) and KidSport to address the underservicing of kids living in the inner city. The discussions were mindful of the realities families and service providers are facing in supporting their children and youth,  and they highlighted the fact that there were hundreds of kids without access to a rite of childhood: mini soccer.

Flash forward one year the YAA, MSA, WYSA and 5 Winnipeg District Clubs, FC Northwest, Winnipeg Phoenix FC, Bonivital SC, Portage Trail SC, and Winnipeg South End United along with Tim Hortons, and the Ministry of Children and Youth Opportunities, the Mobile Mini Soccer Program came to life and has been visiting inner city areas to provide free mini soccer programming!

Click here for June 6 CBC Radio Interview.

Click here for June 6 CBC News video.

Click here for the CBC print story.

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MSA Policy Statement:

All Manitoba Soccer Association affiliated teams (ie. all WYSA Teams) must have approval from their District Club, WYSA and the MSA prior to playing in any exhibition or tournament games outside of Manitoba.

Be advised that the MSA requires each travel application to be submitted to them at least 2 weeks prior to departure - WYSA is currently working on a 3 day turnaround at this time of the year. All applications should be submitted to WYSA by the team's District Club and WYSA will return all completed applications to the District Club.

Please click here for the MSA Team Travel Application policy, procedure and application form. 

Thank you to all of the Volunteers, Participants, and Referees who helped make the Children's Hospital Tournament such a great success!

Winnipeg, May 29, 2013 – The Winnipeg Youth Soccer Association (WYSA) is proud to announce the 22nd Annual Children’s Hospital Tournament will kick off today with a record number of teams. 

This year, the tournament will feature 199 teams, up seven from last year’s record. Teams are coming in from across the region, including from Kenora, Ontario, Yorkton, Saskatchewan and from Minnedosa, Portage la Prairie, Brandon and Carman, Manitoba.

“The tournament started with only four teams back in 1991. Now it’s one of the largest tournaments in western Canada,” said Carlo Bruneau, executive director of the WYSA. “We want to thank the thousands of volunteers in the soccer community who make this event so successful every year.”

Over the years, the tournament has raised more than $275,000 for the Childrens’ Hospital Foundation. The tournament will feature games at various fields around the city, but home base will be John Blumberg soccer complex in Headingley.

The tournament will run from May 29 to June 2. Despite a challenging weather forecast that is predicting rain, WYSA plans to complete as many games as possible and have finals played as scheduled on Sunday. 

“All players and teams should expect to play at their scheduled times,” said Bruneau. “Marshals will decide whether games are playable or not at the field.”

WYSA is the largest youth soccer league administrator in Manitoba. In addition to managing all premier, premier-developmental and developmental leagues (from ages 9 through 18), WYSA oversees recreational soccer leagues for community centres from ages 13 to 18. It also supports district soccer associations who administer the recreational leagues for ages 9 through 12. In recent years, WYSA has managed high school indoor and outdoor soccer leagues and has played a key role in bringing soccer programming to disadvantaged youth in Winnipeg’s core areas.

Organizers plan to play as many games as possible despite poor weather forecast