“I felt like a test subject at times, like a scene straight out of Deadpool”
It was always a part of who I am. I don’t remember a time I didn’t play or watch soccer. I started watching soccer with my grandma as soon as I could understand what soccer was. My grandma was born in Germany and moved to St.Johns, Newfoundland when she was 6 to get away from the war. So growing up, my family always cheered for Germany at the World Cup and the Euros. As soon as I was old enough, I started playing Little League Timbits soccer from when I was 3 until I was 8.
I was 9 when I joined my first competitive team, the Fieldians. Which was my competitive hometown team in St.John’s Newfoundland in 2012. I spent the rest of my youth career playing for Fieldians until I was 18. I was named 1 of 3 captains at Fieldians at the beginning of the 2017 season by my coaches which I held until I aged out of the club in 2022. It was the first time I realized “I was looked at as a leader by my peers”.
At the end of May 2019, our club team flew to England to play 5 games against various club and academy teams including Leicester City Academy where I scored my only goal of the trip. While on the trip we were able to go see a few premier matches including one between Chelsea FC and Leicester City where I held a banner on the field at the pregame ceremony.
“It was so surreal, being shoulder to shoulder with the best of the best, it was so inspiring”
But after this trip, I had to get knee surgery on my Left knee. I knew before going on the trip to England that I would need surgery, but I pushed it back to make sure I could go, I wasn’t going to let this get in the way of the opportunity of a lifetime to play in England. That would keep me out for a majority of the rest of the 2019 season which was hard, but I knew I had no choice. “I needed to heal up and be ready for next season”.
Shortly before being named a captain of my club team, and going to England, I was invited and selected to be on the Newfoundland Provincial Soccer Team from 2016 to 2021. It was a proud moment knowing I’d be able to represent Newfoundland in national tournaments. In 2019 I was named the captain of the Provincial team ahead of our Atlantic Provincial Tournament being held in Moncton, New Brunswick.
It was an honour to be captain, but it came with some worry, coming off of my 2nd knee surgery, being cleared to play the week before we left for the tournament. Not only the pressure to compete and win but not having played in a while was a tough battle on its own. We went on to beat Nova Scotia in the bronze medal game to secure 3rd place in the tournament. “I was proud of the team and the way we battled the whole tournament.”
All while this was happening, my club team back home was doing amazing. Being one of the best teams every year. Especially in 2019, when in October we played our way into the National Tournament of Canada. The tournament was going well until we lost a game 1-0 to a penalty kick to a team we should’ve won against. It resulted in us playing a team from Alberta. Mid-way through the game I blocked a shot with my face, “I didn’t even try to”, yet I did. I then tried continuing to play but was in too much pain. I was subbed off, and taken by ambulance to the Edmonton Children’s Hospital where x-rays and other tests showed I had a dislocated jaw, as well as a blood clot formed from the dislocated jaw which was stopping my jaw from being able to be put back in place.
“I couldn’t catch a break”
I spent the next 10 hours in the hospital getting fluids put into my IV to remove the blood clot, being moved from room to room with doctors and student doctors worked to figure out how to remove my blood clot. “It was like the scene in Deadpool”. It finally cleared and they readjusted my jaw and I went back to the hotel. The next day I had
to go back for tests and make sure everything was still all good. I had to sit in a hospital bed with my mom by my side, and watch my team play their final game, thanks to my younger brother Luke who facetimed my mom the entire game. They went on to win as I cheered in the hospital. They beat P.E.I. to secure 7th in the tournament. Without my mom by my side or Luke there to make sure I was able to watch, I don’t know what I would’ve done, I wanted to be there on that field so badly.
Spring of 2022, was the time I started sending my tapes to Universities. I sent my tape to Laurentian and their soccer coach Tony, and once I had a few conversations with him and his plan for me, I knew where I wanted to go, and stopped talking to any other schools. “I wanted to be a Voyageur”. My first year, I went in expecting to not play much at all, at first I didn’t play a single minute, but slowly I’d play the last few minutes of games. It was on September 25th, the 5th game of the year when I got my break. I started for the first time, at home in Sudbury, which we went on to win, also making it the first win of our season. It was a great feeling.
“I felt like I was making an impact”
That allowed me to slowly get more minutes. Getting to play more like 20-30 minutes a game instead of maybe 10. The season came and went, and I went back home to get ready for the next soccer season at school. In the summer of 2023., a week before I was to fly back to Laurentian to start the season, I tore a part of my quad in the final game of my summer season. I instantly had a pit in my stomach, I knew it couldn’t be good. Again, I couldn’t catch a break. I flew back to Laurentian to have the physio look at my knee, the ultra-sound showed part of my quad was torn on my right leg and rolled 2-3 inches up my leg. They said I was already out for the season. “I didn’t even get a chance”. But in January 2024, recovery was going well and I was doing light training, when I hurt my knee again, the right knee I had already had surgery on back in 2018 and 2020.
Now I’m waiting for an MRI to see how bad my knee is this time and sort out what the recovery time is, to see how long til I am back out on the field.
SPAD Players Tribune 