Tell me » a added three hits for the Cardinals,

Former Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Martin Rennie wrote an interesting blog the other day. Its premise was that, in Rennies opinion, there is not enough private enterprise (in the form of private soccer academies) in Canadian youth soccer for our country to develop its large pool of players. Rennie suggested that private academies are more inclined to hire qualified coaches and are more determined to deliver quality development programs for players, since those private academies will not survive unless they offer quality programs. While this may be true to a certain extent, the proliferation of private academies across the country is not a cure-all for our struggles in player development. There are a number of significant issues that are impeding the development of soccer in Canada. The governance structure of Canadian soccer inhibits change For years, the development of the game in Canada was hampered by a parochial governance structure. The presidents of each provincial soccer association sat on the CSA board of directors, where they lobbied for the interests of their own provincial associations, rather than for what the country, as a whole, required. That has changed under the CSAs new governance model, where a blend of elected and appointed directors now govern the game effectively, by setting policy and direction for the game and empowering CSA staff to execute the Associations strategic objectives. Unfortunately, that governance model has not yet trickled down to the provincial associations. At the provincial and district levels, the game is still facing the same parochial challenges that have restricted soccer development for decades. Provincial boards of directors are largely comprised of district presidents, who are elected by their member clubs. Those district presidents are faced with an inherent conflict of loyalty: Do they do what is in the best interests of the game at the provincial (and by extension, the national) level, or do they do what is in the best interests of the clubs in their own district? Far too often, district loyalties trump the greater good. The result is a fractured, broken governance structure, where change rarely takes place - and when it does, it happens at a glacial pace. Despite the obvious flaws in our governance structure, there are a great many people fighting for change across the country. Standards-based leagues - the starting point for an improved player development pathway - are being introduced across Canada. While these leagues are still in their infancy, I believe that they will create a much better environment for player development than what is currently in place. The next step - and this goes back to Martin Rennies blog - is for the barriers to private enterprise to be removed. Until such time as our standards-based leagues are open to both not-for-profit community clubs and private academies, we will always fall short of our developmental potential. Without a Technical Development Plan, we will continue to go in circles From late 2010 until the summer of 2012, I served as the Technical Director of the Oakville Soccer Club, Canadas largest not-for-profit community soccer club. My first task when hired was to create the clubs technical development plan. This document is ingrained within the clubs five-year strategic plan, and serves as the clubs "technical roadmap". It is a guide to help the club achieve its technical objectives, and is a reference for every major technical decision that the club makes. When the technical leadership changes, as it did when I joined TSN, the club does not fall into disarray because it knows what its technical objectives are and how it has planned to achieve them. The next technical director simply picks up where the previous one left off. The technical development plan also provides the clubs members (parents) with a clear summary of what the club is doing - everything from lobbying for the optimal player development structure in Ontario to investing in coach education within the club. The single biggest criticism that can be levied against the Canadian Soccer Association is that it does not have (and in my opinion, has never had) a technical development plan. That a not-for-profit community club like Oakville has a publicly available plan and the CSA does not is baffling. The CSAs technical development plan needs to be prominently displayed on the CSAs website for every coach, parent and player in Canada to read. It should clearly define the Associations technical objectives and give timeframes for achieving those objectives. Ingrained within the plan should be the CSAs national curriculum, a template for player, coach and referee development in Canada. Without a national curriculum, coaches across the country are simply left to make things up as they go along – and given the poor job that we have collectively done in developing the nearly 850,000 soccer players in our country, it is fair to say that this approach is not working. The plan should contain the coach education pathway, and give an overview of how coach education is going to improve in Canada. The introduction of an assessment-based licensing course for coaching young players - a "Youth Licence" - is just one example of improvements to coach education in Canada that should be in the works. Without a plan, how are we to know where we are going? And - equally as important - how are we to judge if those in charge are taking us in the right direction? Coach education An important component of the technical development plan must be coach education. "You cant teach an old dog new tricks," is what many critics say. And while this is true to a certain extent - many youth coaches who have been "in the system" for a long time dont want to learn or change their bad habits, and will continue to place winning ahead of player development - there are many coaches across the country who are hungry to learn about progressive, innovative development ideas. These are the coaches upon whom we should focus our efforts. Until the introduction of standards-based leagues, all you needed to coach the best young players in Canada was a heartbeat. You only needed to acquire an attendance-based coaching certificate (where showing up for the course meant you effectively passed) to coach at the highest level of youth soccer in Canada. That simply isnt acceptable if we are to improve our ability to develop young players. Coach education in Canada is largely user-pay, whereby the coach funds the cost of their own education. We must make coach education as accessible as possible to as many coaches as possible, by reducing or eliminating the cost of these courses. Many clubs and organizations are contributing financially towards the education of their coaches, but the onus is on the CSA to restructure and reinvest in coach education across the country, as it is one of our key technical priorities. Parent education There are many excellent private soccer academies across the country but there are also many excellent not-for-profit community soccer clubs, as well. To suggest that one business model contains a better development program than the other is simply misleading. Unfortunately, the vast majority of parents cannot identify a superior player development program, because most of them have never been exposed to one. All they have been exposed to is the win-at-all-costs approach that permeates youth sports in our country. Yet parents are expected to choose a soccer program for their child, despite not knowing what it is they should be looking for. At the very least, parents should look for an organization that utilizes qualified, age-appropriate coaches. This doesnt mean that the coaches need to be full-time, salaried coaches, but it does mean that the coaches should have - at minimum - the coaching qualifications required to teach your child. This applies especially to not-for-profit community soccer clubs, who are often forced to rely on unqualified parent coaches due to the volume of players registered at the club. If a child shows promise and wishes to play competitively, parents should look for an organization that employs nationally licensed coaches. While I am the first to admit that a coaching license does not make one an excellent coach, I would argue that it does prove that a coach has demonstrated the knowledge to acquire the license, as well as a hunger for learning. In terms of choosing a soccer organization, bigger is not always better, nor is your cheapest option necessarily your best option. While some large not-for-profit community clubs have excellent development programs, managing those programs is not easy. Does the club have adequate full or part-time technical staff to meet the needs of the players? Does the club invest in coach education? Are the coaches required to continue their coach education, and does the club pick up the cost of this education? The same questions can, and should, be asked of private academies. Parents should consider the philosophy of the organization they choose. Do they promote a player-centric approach to development? By this I mean, will they move your child to the appropriate competitive level if their development merits such a move? Or do they lock your child into a "team" for an entire year, regardless of how well he or she develops over the course of that year? There are benefits and drawbacks to choosing either a not-for-profit community club or a private academy, so it is important for parents to ask questions and solicit feedback from others who have had experience with the organizations in question. Educating parents about player development is a massive obstacle to the development of the game in Canada - it is arguably our biggest hurdle. But it can be done. It simply requires time, patience and a consistent message. During my time at the Oakville Soccer Club, I experienced the obstacle of parent education first-hand. Each and every parent whose path I crossed wanted one thing and one thing only - the very best for their child. My challenge was to convince them that I, too, had their childs best interests at heart. When presented with a new method of developing young soccer players, many parents pushed back. Change is difficult for many people to accept, especially when they lack the background, education and experience within the game to understand the reasons why changes are being made. "Why should our child play 5v5? Isnt soccer supposed to be 11v11?" "When are you going to teach my kid to play a position?" "This isnt real soccer!" These are all legitimate questions from parents. They just require answers, which come through putting in the time to explain the teaching methods being used, through having the patience to understand the parents point of view and through delivering a consistent message and rationale. Eventually, parents begin to understand that a focus on individual skill development and a small-sided games approach to player development is the right way for their children to learn the game of soccer. The only evidence they need to see is the smiles on the faces of their children, who enjoy the game much more because they learn the skills they need to be successful. There are many more challenges that we must overcome if we are to put Canada on the right path to success as a soccer-playing nation. But by understanding the issues that are holding us back, we can begin to work towards removing these barriers so that the next generation has a better chance of fulfilling their soccer dreams. Air Max 95 Online Cheap . 22 because of a bruised foot and have added forward Sean Collins to the roster on emergency recall from Springfield of the AHL. Buy Air Max 95 NZ . Viewers in the Canadiens region can watch the game on TSN Canadiens at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. The game can also be heard on TSN Radio Montreal 690. The Calgary Flames will see if they can take their recent hot streak on the road when they shoot for a sixth consecutive win Monday night in Montreal. http://www.airmax95pnz.com/ . Trailing 5-4 in the third set, the 12th-ranked Isner fought off two match points and evened it at 5-5 with consecutive aces. The former University of Georgia star had his only service break of the match to go up 6-5 before firing the last four of his 30 aces to close out Ginepri, an Atlanta resident ranked 281st. Cheap Air Max 95 NZ . Cain departed in the fourth inning of a 10-5 loss to the Pirates on Thursday. X-rays on Cains bruised forearm were negative. He was hit when Sanchez led off the fourth with a groundout. Air Max 95 NZ Wholesale . During halftime, Love told The Associated Press he would receive treatment Saturday night and hoped to play Monday night against Houston. "I knew that my quad was bothering me pretty bad so I went out there and tried to move around a little bit and it just wasnt quite right," Love said.PHOENIX - Revenge was a fleeting thing for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Milwaukee Brewers got their payback the very next pitch. Jonathan Lucroy homered twice, including a grand slam in an eventful seventh inning, and the Brewers made it two in a row over Arizona by beating the Diamondbacks 7-5 on Tuesday night. Lucroys slam to centre came on Brad Zieglers first delivery after Arizona reliever Evan Marshall was ejected for hitting Ryan Braun with a pitch. "They won the tough-guy points, but I dont know what the stats are for those," Milwaukee starter Kyle Lohse said. "We won the game because of that." Brewers manager Ron Roenicke called Lucroys at-bat "probably the best Ive ever seen." "After they smoke our guy, they bring in their closer, the first pitch he sees he hits a grand slam. Theres no way an at-bat can get bigger than that," he said. It was the first grand slam and only the 16th home run allowed by Ziegler, who is not usually the Arizona closer. The Brewers couldnt understand why the Diamondbacks picked that moment to hit Braun. "We know the way the game works," Braun said. "I was surprised I got hit in that situation, those circumstances — go-ahead run at second base, tying run at third." Lucroy insisted the Diamondbacks drilling Braun did not provide added motivation. "Im not about revenge or payback," the catcher said. "Im just about winning the game. It worked out for us." Marshall (2-2) took the loss, facing three batters without getting an out after relieving starter Mike Bolsinger, who was called up from Triple-A Reno earlier in the day. Lucroy had a solo homer in the sixth. Aramis Ramirez also hit a solo shot for the Brewers. Lohse (8-2), who had hit three batters all season, plunked two in his six innings. He grazed Didi Gregorius to start the game, then hit Chris Owings just below the back of his head to start the sixth. Lohse also threw one over Bolsingers head, and the Brewers hit a batter in Monday nights win as well. All that apparently led to Marshall retaliating. "I am not going to comment on that," Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said. "You have been around the game long enough." With a slight smile on his face, Marshall said he didnt hit Braun on purpose. Lohse allowed four runs, three earned, and six hits. The Brewers trailed 4-2 when he was lifted for a pinch-hitter in a five-run seventh.dddddddddddd Arizonas Roger Kieschnick hit his first career homer, off Francisco Rodriguez to start the ninth. The ball landed in the swimming pool beyond the right-field fence. Singles by pinch-hitter Cody Ross and Gerardo Parra put runners at first and second with one out, but Rodriguez struck out Paul Goldschmidt. Miguel Montero bounced out to first to end it, and Rodriguez earned his major league-leading 22nd save. With the Brewers trailing 4-2, Jean Segura led off the seventh with his second triple of the night, off the wall in centre, and scored on Elian Herreras sacrifice fly. That ended the night for Bolsinger, who had a 4-2 lead when he left. He wound up allowing three runs on seven hits with six strikeouts and no walks in 6 1-3 innings. Marshall came in and gave up a pinch-hit single to Lyle Overbay, then a double by Scooter Gennett to put runners on second and third. That brought up Braun. Marshalls first pitch went behind the batter, leading plate umpire Ted Barrett to walk to the mound for a nose-to-nose conversation with the Arizona pitcher. The very next pitch, Marshall plunked Braun just above the left hip to load the bases. "Thats ridiculous," Lucroy said. "Its overreacting." Barrett immediately tossed Marshall, who got high-fives from his teammates in the Diamondbacks dugout. But with the bases loaded, Lucroy homered to left-centre, above the 413-foot sign, and Milwaukee led 7-4. Gibson has been outspoken since Brauns 65-game suspension last year for violating baseballs drug agreement during the 2011 season, which included the sluggers big series when the Brewers edged the Diamondbacks in the NL playoffs. Asked if he thought that figured in Marshalls pitch, Braun said: "Youd have to ask him (Gibson). I wish him the best, hope he finds peace and happiness in his life." NOTES: It was the second ejection for the Diamondbacks in two nights. Gibson was tossed in the ninth inning Monday. ... A victory would have lifted Arizona out of last place in the NL West. ... To make room for Bolsinger, the Diamondbacks optioned reliever Will Harris to Triple-A Reno. ... Brewers CF Carlos Gomez sat out his second consecutive game with a sore hamstring. ... In the third game of the four-game series Wednesday night, the Brewers send Matt Garza (4-4, 4.17 ERA) to the mound against Wade Miley (3-6, 4.71). ' ' '