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Sports The Devils' return Jon Kuiperij Sports Editor sports@oakvillebeaver.com 25 | Friday, February 6, 2015 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com "Connected to your Community" Third edition of Oakville Blue Devils will compete in League1 as amateur club by Jon Kuiperij Beaver Sports Editor College and university men's soccer players who live in Oakville will finally have an opportunity to develop their game each summer in their hometown. League1 Ontario, the province's first semi-professional soccer league, recently announced that the Oakville Blue Devils are part of the loop's expansion from nine to 12 teams for its second season of operation in 2015. The Blue Devils, formerly the Toronto Lynx of the United Soccer League's Premier Development League, are affiliated with the Oakville Soccer Club, which will oversee the Blue Devils' U21 reserve team. "We will be an amateur club and all of our players will be going to or coming back from university or college. It's very much the top of the pyramid for development," said Blue Devils president and Oakville resident Duncan Wilde. "We're bringing a PDL-level program into Dave Harris Oakville with all eyes on Oakville Soccer Club executive director a championship." OSC executive director Dave Harris said the Blue Devils and the U21 reserve team, the latter of which will be coached by Billy Steele and OSC male technical director Chris Grierson, will fill a void in the local soccer system. "League1 is the pinnacle in terms of soccer in Ontario. We are not ready as a club to have a League1 team (ourselves) but to be an affiliate allows us to develop our players local- (Collegiate players) coming back to Oakville now don't have to go somewhere else. Pictured left to right, Oakville Soccer Club executive director Dave Harris, League1 Ontario president Dino Rossi and Oakville Blue Devils president Duncan Wilde announced last week that the Blue Devils will join League1 Ontario this season. | photo by Graham Paine -- Oakville Beaver -- @Halton_Photog ly," Harris said. "NCAA, CIS, Canadian college kids coming back to Oakville now don't have to go somewhere else (to play). They can stay here." The Blue Devils will begin their League1 season in May and will play out of Sheridan College's Oakville campus. Wilde said home games will be scheduled for every other Sunday afternoon, with the OSC U21 reserves playing at 2 p.m. and the Blue Devils hitting the pitch at 4 p.m. Tickets for Blue Devils games will likely cost $5, Wilde said, with free admission being granted to OSC players and staff. Blue Devils name has long and successful history The Blue Devils name originates from the former powerhouse OSC boys' rep team, which was coached by local soccer legend Phil Iafrati and won U19 provincial and national championships in 1998. In 2005, the Scarborough-based Metro Lions relocated to Oakville and adopted the Blue Devils name. Coached by Wilde, the Blue Devils won the Canadian Professional Soccer League (now the Canadian Soccer League) championship in their first season in Oakville. Wilde then left the team to rejoin the Lynx, and the Blue Devils moved to Brampton following the 2006 season. Wilde said he is confident this edition of the Blue Devils, which has been reinstated as a senior member of the PeelHalton Soccer Association, is in Oakville to stay. "When we did it in 2005, we didn't have a formal affiliation (with OSC), just a working agreement. We played at Bronte Athletic Field, which was small and had grass and mud all the time. Now we're playing at Sheridan, a fantastic stadium... We scrambled in 2005 to pull it together, this see Oakville on p.26 Fifteen Oakville residents to represent Ontario at Canada Winter Games Oakville will be sending six hockey players, four skiers and five other athletes to the Canada Winter Games later this month in Prince George, B.C. Lindsay Agnew, Madison Field, Sarah McDonnell and Kristin O'Neill -- all of whom play in the Provincial Women's Hockey League -- will suit up for Ontario's women's hockey team. Ian Blacker, a defenceman with the South Central Triple A league's minor midget Brampton 45s, and Zachary Gallant, a forward for the Greater Toronto Hockey League's Mississauga Rebels, will play for the provincial men's team. Griffin Copp, William Kornya and Brianna Macdonald will represent Ontario in alpine skiing competition, while Robert Andison will race in freestyle skiing. Erin Stewart is the second-ever Oakville Speed Skating Club athlete (and the first female) to qualify for the Canada Winter Games, doing so with a fifth-overall finish at last fall's Ontario Speed Skating Association CWG trials. The only other Oakville speed skater to qualify for the Games was Patrick Duffy, who is now a member of the national senior team. Snowboarders Griffin Haines and Richard Kilmer-Choi, gymnast Mariana ColussiPelaez and figure skater Natalie Walker are Oakville's other Canada Winter Games athletes. Local resident Catherine Vincelli is part of the Team Ontario mission staff. The Canada Winter Games will take place Feb. 13-March 1. Some of the action will be broadcast on TSN, and online coverage will be provided via Canada Games TV. Other events that will be contested at the Games include indoor archery, badminton, biathlon, cross-country and para-nordic skiing, judo, ringette, squash, synchronized swimming, table tennis, target shooting and wheelchair basketball. Seventeen of Canada's athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi had previously represented Ontario at the Canada Winter Games, including St. Louis Blues defenceman Alex Pietrangelo, snowboarder Marianne Leeson and eight members of the women's hockey team. Ontario has won the Canada Games (summer or winter) flag 20 times since the inception of the Games in 1967. The province has won nine of 12 Winter Games titles.