Success Comes Early to Fury
Ottawa looks forward to fifth season in Super Y-League
 Thursday, May 3
OTTAWA – The Ottawa Fury joined United Soccer Leagues Super Y-League four seasons ago when high technology entrepreneur John Pugh acquired the Fury W-League franchise. The Fury enters the 2007 season with a W-League team that has reached the Final Four each of the past four years, a Premier Development League team entering its third season and a youth development program which is already graduating players to the senior teams.
“When we took over the club, we had two main goals,” said Ottawa Owner and President John Pugh. “The first was to provide Ottawa fans with some of the best soccer in North America. The second, build a youth program which would afford our youth players the very best development opportunities. United Soccer Leagues allowed us to build our club pyramid under one umbrella organization.”
Starting off with just four teams in the 2003 season, the Fury had early success winning the Super Y-League North East Division at both the U15 and U16 Boys levels and sending three teams to the North American Finals in Chicago. Since then the Fury has become a regular fixture and a strong competitor at the finals
“The Super Y-League has provided us with great competition week in and week out in our division against the likes of MPS Boston and Seacoast and provided great exposure for our players,” added Fury Technical Director, former Northern Ireland international, Colin McCurdy. “At the finals, we get to play against champions from across North America all with differing styles and patterns of play.”
The Fury program has offered new opportunities to players from Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec. Exposure to US collegiate coaches through the Super Y-League and competitions such as the US National Cup has paid off handsomely. Last fall seven boys and five girls headed south across the border to play for US schools and this year another eight players will be following the same path.
Striker Alex Valerio will attend Princeton in the fall and will be the fourth Fury player in as many years to be recruited by an Ivy League school. After leading her team to the semi-finals at the 2005 SYL North American Finals, Valerio broke through into the W-League squad last year and appeared in five games including the W-League Championship Final. At Princeton, Valerio will be a teammate of the Fury’s Canadian national team star, Diana Matheson.
Three of Valerio’s peers, Anhnhi Tran, Janelle Blake and Gillian Baggott were recruited by Florida Atlantic University coach, Brian Dooley. Dooley, moved quickly to attract the talented Fury trio of seventeen year olds to Boca Raton after watching them participate in the US Club Soccer National Cup Finals in Greensboro, North Carolina last July. In addition, forwards Meagan Tibbo and Josee Charron will head off for Dartmouth College and Kent State respectively and yet another member of the squad, Leah Halka will join Fairleigh Dickinson.
This year, for the first time, a team representing the Canadian Super Y-League clubs was selected and participated in the SYL ODP National Camps. Twenty-six Fury players at various age groups were selected to the Team Canada squads and Gina Pacheco and Chanel Gourde-Bureau were selected to the 2007 Super Y-League Select Team for girls born in 1990
“We are thrilled with what we have achieved in just four seasons,” added McCurdy, “But much work remains and we are looking forward to the 2007 season.” The Fury open their season on the road to the Nordic Spirit on May 16th.
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