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Tuesday June 23 2015 21 SPORTS RECREATION SOCCER LTD. Gold medal Olympic soccer player inspires NWT youth By DALI CARMICHAEL Young soccer players from the NWT got to spend time with one of the pros last week as U.S. Olympic gold medalist Lori Lindsey toured around the North Slave region giv- ing tips and tricks for life on and off the eld. The trip was part of the U.S. Department of States Sports United Envoy Program whereby athletes and coaches travel around the globe to lead programs developed by U.S. embassies and consulates. Keeping in theme with Canadas hosting duties of this years FIFA Womens World Cup tournament the Pan Am games and Para Pan games Lindsey said sending out a female soccer player for this years Canadian envoy just made sense. The goal is to ultimately just empower and get young females excited about the sport but all kids as well especially in some of these communities where they dont have as many resources to go there and help teach soccer but get them excited and ultimately have a tonne of fun doing it. For me Ive had a long career and the thing that kept me going was just playing and enjoying the sport. Lindsey a retired midelder for the na- tional U.S. team and a gold medalist in the 2012 Olympic Games in London was ac- companied by members of the NWT Soccer organization as she spent time traveling the NWT from June 18 to 22. Lindsey engaged in speaker sessions and games with school kids in Fort Providence Behchoko and Yellowknife where she spent the weekend. There she geared up for a few drills and a fun game with this years Western Arctic Games ages 14-16 womens soccer team as they completed their recruitment camp over the weekend. Instead of doing some of the drills we just put them into groups so we were able to play games Lindsey said. I would jump in as much as I could and play alongside them. I would stop it and just give them pointers in different areas of the game but for the most part we just wanted to get them running around sweating and laughing and playing. Before taking in some of the Aboriginal Day events in Yellowknife she also played with youth at this weekends Ombrelle Ac- tive Start Festival a fun day full of soccer for kids 12 and under. After hanging up her cleats in December Lindsey is ofcially retired from the eld. Her envoy to the NWT which followed a similar trip to Vancouver is only the rst of many similar trips around the world for the athlete. As much as Lindsey enjoys the envoy ex- perience she said the children seem to love it even more. It just opens up their eyes to see what else they could potentially do or how far they could go with their sport said Lyric Sandhals executive director of the NWT Soccer Association. We dont know or the kids dont see that theres more that they can go play university or they can try out for na- tional teams. Just for them to see that there is a development pathway and to hear her story and what it took - the dedication and the amount of hard work that was needed to get there - I think that was just really good for the kids to see. With long distances between the regions of the territory having ofcial soccer clubs that play against one another can be difcult but Sandhals said the sport has a history of being very popular in the NWT especially in freeplay formats. What we want to do is try to get into the communities and make sure they have their coaches or volunteers trained and that they have equipment Sandhals said. We want to make sure there is development going on so we can eld teams for future games and get more kids involved. For those kids who missed out on the chance to play with Lindsey the NWT Soccer Association will be hosting training camps throughout the months of June and July. For details head to httpswww.nwtkicks.ca PhotocourtesyofU.S.ConsulateGeneral-Calgary Professional soccer player Lori Lindsey works through some drills with youth at the Ombrelle Active Start Festival while visiting Yellowknife on June 20.