A recent story crossed our desk at the OSA and we’d like to know if there are similar examples out there.

The Oakville Soccer Club have created a formal partnership with a local hockey club, the Oakville Hornets Hockey Association in an effort to ease the conflict that young players and their parents have when forced to choose a single sport at a young age.

This spoke to us on two levels, firstly the collaboration between two very different sports competing for the same players and parent dollars.

Leaders of both organizations have worked on a system that will allow girls to play both sports which includes a unique pricing structure, specialised training schedules and the opportunity for coaches of female athletes to develop at future coaching events.

The second level which really highlights the athlete centric approach is that this sort of collaboration fully supports the Canadian Sport 4 Life, LTPD model. At these ages within the Physical Literacy stages we fully promote a multi-sport approach however this is often easier said than done. Identifying complimentary sports that support a child’s passion for soccer can be tough but this Oakville based project looks like a positive step in the right direction.

With players able to participate in multiple sports they broaden their chances of long term physical well-being by becoming more physically literate.

Parents benefit from enabling their child to experience different sports and not force a decision on them and their child.

Clubs benefit by retaining players not to mention cost sharing opportunities.

We’d like to know if there are more Clubs out there working in a similar collaborative way with other sport or community associations to provide greater opportunities for your players?

If you do we’d like to learn more, please email Club Development with more details about your partnership and its delivery.