SOCCER: Three Blind Refs tournament begins Saturday

Hotels, restaurants and just about every square inch of the Kidsports Complex will be teeming with soccer enthusiasts beginning this morning as the two-day Three Blind Refs soccer tournament, hosted by the Flathead Soccer Club, kicks off its 23rd annual event.

Players ranging from under-10 to 18 years old and representing more than 120 teams from Montana, Idaho, Washington and Canada are in town for the traditional early summer showcase, with play beginning at 8 a.m. today and winding down early Sunday evening. Games will be played at 18 fields simultaneously, 14 at Kidsports and four others at nearby Glacier High School.

The event is the biggest of the year for the Flathead Soccer Club and a massive undertaking for the group and its first-year Director of Coaching Nate Evans, who also serves as tournament director.

“Luckily we’ve been doing it for a number of years and we’ve got tremendous support from our board members and volunteers for our club,” Evans said. “It’s really been neat to see all of the collaboration.”

Clubs at the tournament are divided based on age and all are guaranteed at least three 60-minute matches in a round-robin format. Top-finishing clubs in some age groups will also have an opportunity to play in championship matches on Sunday afternoon.

The Flathead Soccer Club’s teams — called the Flathead Force — will be taking part in the action, as will clubs from the Whitefish-based Flathead Rapids, Polson Football Club and Kootenai Rapids (Libby).

There are about 40 fewer clubs at this summer’s event than a year ago, a dip Evans primarily attributed to the slumping Canadian dollar. The Canadian Days American Legion baseball tournament, played last month in Kalispell, saw a similar decline in Canadian teams for economic reasons.

“The Canadian teams are the missing piece,” Evans said. “It’s a really fun tournament and we have the best facilities in the state to host it, it’s a beautiful vacation destination, but (teams want to) see teams they’ve never seen and the Canadian teams are exactly that.”

The tournament is a major economic driver not just for the club but also for the region at large. Evans, who is also the head boys soccer coach at Flathead High School, estimated as many as 5,000 people have descended on the Flathead Valley for the tournament.

“What this program does for us is it allows us to allocate funds for new goals and equipment and to keep our fees as low as possible,” Evans said. “There are a lot of (expenses) that go into it but this is a fundraiser tournament for our club.

“In terms of community, it’s a massive input of revenue from the hotels to the restaurants to the shopping.”

More information, including a full tournament schedule, is available online at www.flatheadsoccer.org.