GotSport is used Nationally for registering athletes, teams, events, etc. Since Hurricane Soccer is an associated soccer organization under Indiana Soccer Association, they use GotSport to assign athletes to teams, issue insurance to each athlete, add licensed Referees to games, etc. With that said, your athlete will be added to GotSport system with our Club or the other Clubs in Fort Wayne that are associated with Indiana Soccer. However, you do have the option to use our Online registration or stopping by our Office Monday - Friday from 9:00-5:00, but you should email [email protected] before stopping by to ensure someone is in our office to help!
No, we do not accept parent request; to have an athlete to carpool, or for a certain team, or certain night of practice, or a Coach. Our Recreational program is volunteer based, our Coaches may make athlete requests; beside their child, they may request up to 2 - other athletes as the Head Coach, the Assistant Coach may request 1 - athlete beside their child. Our volunteer Coaches pick their night that they are available to hold practice. This has been our policy for 8+ years, all Recreational Clubs in Fort Wayne use Parent Coaches. Most Recreational Clubs have adopted our policy and no longer take parent requests. Unfortunately, parent requests cause 'stacked' teams, not necessarily by skill, but when the team is made up of all friends it creates the possibility of outsiders on a team, or within our organization. Recreation is not just about learning a new skill, it creates a social environment for families, and athletes in our community.
Hurricane Soccer is an at cost, non-profit organization. When you register your athlete(s) there are reminders that we have a "No Refund" policy. Consequently, the Club incurs fees on your athlete(s) as soon as you register your athlete(s) in one of our programs. These fees include, but are not limited to Online registration fee, Credit card transaction fee, insurance fees, etc. However, you may reach out to one of our Board Members and they maybe able to move your athlete(s) registration from one season to another.
Our Hurricane Rec program is competitive, meaning we do keep scores and points per game effect where a Rec stands at the end of season for tournament bracket placements. Other Rec programs do NOT keep score, the athletes may keep score but they do not use a scoring system that you can track your teams past scores and progress. If fact the North East Select Soccer League (NESSL), do NOT keep scores because it is Rec. We have had a scoring system for 8+ years, to help parents learn how IN Soccer associated Tournaments scoring system works. For each Win the winning team receives 3pts, for every Tie each team receives 1pt. For each goal a team receives 1pt per goal up to 5 goals, therefore if Team A wins 7-1 over Team B, then Team A receives 3pt for the Win and 5pts for goals, and Team B receives 1pt for their goal and the total points after the game is 8pts to 1pt. Consequently, if Team A wins 7-6 over Team B, then Team A still receives their 3pt for the win, but now Team receives 5pts for up to 5 goals and Team B received 5pt for up to 5 goals and the total points after that game is 8 to 5. This encourages Team B to stay in the game to keep challenging Team A. These points are added up over the 6 weeks of regular season for the Team standings. These teams may have very different winning/loosing regular season games, but in the end if Team B keeps the game close but looses majority of their games they will still be in the top of the standings, not in 1st but they could be 2nd. At the end of regular season games, teams are placed into brackets or given byes depending on their standing. Points do not carry over into the Tournament, so the team in last standing place still has the chance to win and make it to the championship. Most not all tournaments, with 4 team division use the format of 1st vs 3rd and 2nd vs 4th, or with a 6 team division use the format of 1st & 2nd are given byes in the 1st brackets, then bracket A 3rd vs 5th and bracket B 4th vs 6th, then 1st vs winner of bracket A and 2nd vs winner of bracket B.
The variables that go into building teams are; how many registrations per an Age Group (an athlete's specific age), do we have to combine the Genders and/or Age Groups into Age Divisions (we need enough registrations to have at least 3 teams, doubleheader every 3rd week, or twice a season), how many volunteer Coaches per those combined Age Divisions, and lastly what are the US Youth Soccer rules on formations per Age Division. Recommended formations by IN Soccer and US Youth Soccer are: U8s and below are 4v4, No Goalies, U9-U10s are 7v7 (6 + Goalie), U11-U12s are 9v9 (8 + Goalie). Therefore, due to registrations and volunteer Coaches, we have been combining U4-U5s for either 3v3 or 4v4 no subs, U6-U9 Girls to have an all Girls division for 5v5, then U6-U8 Coed (usually only 1 or 2 girls want to play against boys) for 5v5, then U9 boys - U10 boys & girls are combined into U10 Coed for 7v7, and U11-U12 boys and girls are combined into U12 Coed division for 9v9. With that said, we try to provide at least 2-3 subs for each team as on any given Saturday, there is always 1-2 athletes missing per team. Consequently, that works out for U5s having 3 or 4 athletes per team, U9 Girls having 6 to 8 athletes per team, U8 Coed having 6 to 8 athletes per team, U10 Coed have 8 to 10 athletes per team, and U12s have 10 to 12 athletes per team.
Our Club is a sanctioned under Indiana Soccer Association and United States Youth Soccer (USYS), which means we are provided with Licensed Referees (these are NOT Club Refs, they can Ref throughout Indiana and some anywhere in the US). These Refs are to follow the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA)'s Laws of the Game. The FIFA's Laws of the Game are rules that Soccer or European Football uses throughout the World. USYS, & American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), guides their State Associations with modifications for Youth Soccer's FIFA Laws of the Game. In 2016, these guidelines were as extensive as to move all Youth Soccer organizations throughout the US to be Small-Sided games, whereas 4v4, 5v5, 7v7 and 9v9 will be used for U12s and under and 11v11 is full size fields will be used for only U13s and up. Each year there are modifications added to the Youth Soccer and to the FIFA Laws of the Game, therefore what you may have followed as a Youth or as an Adult a few years ago may have changed! Our Club stays on top of these changes to keep our athletes and Referees following the most up to date changes.