A season that started with a lot of uncertainty in the spring evolved into a highly successful 2023 soccer campaign in Estevan, the president of Estevan Youth Soccer says.

Stacy Murphy said there were several highlights to look back on this year after the season wrapped up last week.

"I think the season went really well this year...we had close to an extra hundred registrants compared to last year. So that was good to see soccer growing in Estevan," Murphy said. "And this year we had a travelling competitive team for our two oldest age groups, and we held our first little soccerfest jamboree this year as well."

Initially, there was a shortage of coaches which threatened the season, but Murphy said the community really stepped up.

"We had at minimum one coach for every team, and some teams had two coaches," Murphy said. "It was great to see community members step forward who don't even have kids in soccer or kids in general help out. Our youngest coach who helped this year was 12-years-old, so it was really great to see everybody step up and make soccer a sport in Estevan that kids were able to play."

Murphy added that the weather also cooperated.

"I think we only had to cancel three times in total. When we cancel, it's more so for more safety reasons because the field will just be way too saturated and it wouldn't be safe for kids to be running on it," she said.

This was also the first season since the pandemic that was able to operate with no restrictions.

"I'm not going to lie, it was beautiful because we didn't have to sanitize balls in between and we didn't have to limit the number of people that could be registered due to the COVID restrictions that were in place before," Murphy said.

Big picture, Murphy says they are hoping to build on this year's momentum in 2024.

"I think that we'd like to build on obviously increasing numbers again next year, and we're going to continue to have the competitive travelling teams for the U13 and the U11," Murphy said. "And then I think the board...we'd like to discuss how feasible it would be to have an indoor winter season too."