Laval’s Comets kick off season on the road

Originally slated to begin their season at home against the Canadians on Sunday, May 27 the Comets will now open on the road against the Vermont Lady Voltage this coming Saturday, May 26 at the Collins-Perly sports complex in St-Albans, on the shores of Lake Champlain.

The home-and-home series will see the two teams in Laval next day, May 27, at the Comets home opener at Bois-de-Boulogne Stadium. Game time is 3:00 pm.

The Sudbury Canadians were dropped from competition when the United Soccer Leagues deemed them unable to meet membership requirements.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people,” says Comets coach Mohamed Hilen. “The season would have been very difficult for the Canadians. Most of the other teams would have crushed the Sudbury team, the league’s weakest entry. I hope they don’t permanently disappear.”

Comets director-general Philippe Ciarlo says he’s pleased with the fact that only minor changes to the schedule were required. “Our tickets are already printed. None of our game dates have changed. We were lucky. We’ll be playing more games against Vermont.”

The Comets distributed 1.4 million copies of the 2007 schedule throughout Quebec in April. “In our first year we wanted to prove to the girls that we were a serious organization. This year, we want the let the people know who the Comets are,” Mr. Ciarlo explains.

Comets management has given every soccer player in Laval a ticket to one of the W-League’s home games, amounting to about 11,000 players who’ll be able to come out and support the local team free of charge at least once. “We also distributed 5000 tickets to Laurentian Region. We want to encourage soccer fans to come out and see the highest caliber of women’s soccer around,” Mr. Ciarlo concludes.

(Photo: Martin Alarie Courrier Laval)