If you've been around soccer long enough, you will no doubt have run into Mike Doyle and Vivian Hansen along the way. The two long-time volunteers from Yellowknife have been involved in just about everything there is to do when it comes to the sport in the NWT.
Their efforts over the years were honoured at the Explorer Hotel on Saturday with the Canada Soccer Award of Merit, which was part of the Canada Soccer Meeting of the Members that happened in Yellowknife last week.
Hansen, who wasn't available for comment as of press time, is perhaps best known for organizing such tournaments as the Mini World Cup every summer and the Merry Kickmas event, which happened every December for several years. In addition, she's also been a coach and member of the NWT Soccer board of directors.
Doyle has been at the helm many times for Team NWT at such events as the Arctic Winter Games, Canada Summer Games, Western Canada Summer Games and at various national championships. He's also travelled around the NWT several times as an instructor for players and coaches.
“It was nice to be nominated and it's an acknowledgment,” said Doyle. “The NWT is a small fish in a big pond but it's nice to see Canada Soccer recognize that we're growing and that they see what we've been doing to grow the game up here.”
When he started coaching in the late 1990s, the soccer set-up wasn't anything close to what it looks like now, said Doyle.
“It was all volunteers,” he said. “We didn't have the expertise of staff members to help us and there weren't a lot of coaches.”
Over time, things began to grow and eventually there came a staff member in the form of Lyric Sandhals and she has been a God-send, said Doyle.
“She's taken a lot of pressure off the coaches and volunteers,” he said. “Ryan Fequet (former NWT Soccer president) put a lot of policies and procedures in place and that's been good because it's helped guide a lot of the decisions.”
Add to that the people that are currently in the system and Doyle said the future looks awfully bright.
“Gina Michel is one of our past players and she's coaching our girls' team for the Western Canada Summer Games next year,” he said. “Tonya Huck is another former player who's assisting Gina. Isaac Ayiku is involved, Judon Gregory is a goaltender coach and that's something we never would have thought about 10 years ago. There are so many people who have been around through the bad times and the good – Roger Vail, Doreen Carpenter, Vivian Hansen to name a few. The people have been great, the kids have been great and it's been a great 20 years for me.”