Re: “Canada shouldn’t subsidize ‘beautiful game,’” June 18.

As a West Coaster, I grew up with soccer. It has been a lifetime love affair.

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Like most Canadian kids, we whacked tennis balls into makeshift goals, screaming out our own play-by-play. However, the hockey sticks were soon dropped and we played soccer through Victoria’s wind, rain and sleet. We quit when it was too dark to play. We watched the local city-league matches and kept track of the standings in the local paper.

Who could afford to hang out in ice rinks? Hockey was a middle-class game. In our family of five kids, playing sports had to be cheap or one didn’t play.

Soccer was cheap, simple and beautiful. My dad, a former hockey player, fell in love with the game. He stood in the Saturday morning rain and wind at Beacon Hill Park drinking coffee and laughing as he watched the action.

The game is fast and rugged despite the dramatic flair some players throw into their collisions. Don’t be fooled. Want to know if those injuries hurt? Kick someone in the shins. Better still, have someone kick you in the shins. No padding in this game.

What’s wrong with throwing some national funding into the soccer programs? There are a million kids playing soccer in Canada. A lot of those kids are great athletes who need role models. Not everything in Canada has to take place on a sheet of ice.

Let’s bring on the beautiful game.

Barrie Moen

Victoria