Updated February 2010

Registration requirements vary slightly for different seasons. When registration for a new season is about to start, the rules will be posted and a link to them placed on our home page, or you can look at them at any time on our Club page.

In all cases, you will need to pay a fee ($160 summer 2008) to the Spitfires Soccer Club and fill out (or update) your information in our Player Contact Database. You will also have to fill in a registration and/or waiver form for the league and you will need an OSA soccer photo ID card.

Yes. If you have never played with the club before, you may attend one practice before deciding whether or not you want to join. Send an e-mail to our contact address (see bottom) first to make sure one of our registrars will be there with a waiver for you to sign. No-one can play without a signed waiver.

Returning players must register before attending a practice.

The club has an (unpaid) elected executive which manages all issues in the club and represents the club at the OCSL and EODSA meetings. These positions are elected at the Annual General Meeting (AGM). Coaches, who are appointed (or found, or enlisted) by the teams, are on the executive and there are also a number of appointed positions. To see who's who, go to our Executive page.

The executive and coaches are all open to input from club members and we encourage anyone with ideas or initiative to get involved.

Spitfires is a non-profit organization, run entirely by volunteers. The fees we collect go to:

• The league(s) organizing the season (e.g. OCSL, EODSA)
• Field rentals (e.g. the Coliseum, the outdoor fields)
• club equipment (nets, shirts, corner flags, etc)
• club admin (stamps, envelopes, website, etc)

A full detailed budget of all revenues and costs is presented at the annual general membership meeting, and is available to anyone interested.

You need your own cleats (rubber, not metal!), red soccer socks, shin guards, and black shorts. It's also useful to have your own soccer ball. You can buy equipment through the club (See Spitfires equipment). If you have shorts and socks, but they aren't the Spitfires' colours, check with your coach to see if that matters on your team.

The club supplies jerseys. On men's teams, these are distributed and collected each game. On women's teams, the jerseys are distributed at the start of the season and collected at the end. To ensure the return of the jerseys, women provide a $100 deposit cheque which is cashed 15 days after the final game if the shirts have not been returned. (See jersey policy)

Spitfires teams play in the Ottawa-Carleton Soccer League (OCSL) during the summer. In 2010, for the first time, we will also be putting a women's team into the National Capital Industrial Soccer League (NCISL).

The NCISL women's league has two divisions: div 1 is similar to WR1/2, div 2 has a range of skill levels from WR2-level to novice. Both divisions play on Mondays. Our women's team has indicated that they are going into division 2 and do not intend to run practices.

The OCSL has these leagues:

• Premier,
• Men's and Women's Competitive (MC, WC),
• Recreational(MR, WR) and
• Old-Timer (OT, W30+).

When a league has divisions, they are separated by skill level, with #1 being the highest-skilled for that league.

In the OCSL, our teams ask for home fields in the west end of the city. We usually, but not always, get what we ask for.

50% of the games are held at the home field. The other games are at the other teams' home fields. Most of these will be within the city boundaries, but a few will likely be in the surrounding area. The OCSL includes teams from Almonte, Chelsea, Carleton Place, Perth, Kemptville and so on. You can check the OCSL web site to find out what teams were in what division last year and where their fields were.

In the NCISL, most of the fields are in the Kanata area, with a few others scattered across the city. See the NCISL website for maps.

Most games start at 6:30. On fields with lights, they may start at 8:30. At the end of the season, when the sun sets earlier, a couple may start at 6:00.

Teams which hold practices usually start either at 6 or 6:30pm -- see your coach. Our Monday practice field was Centrepoint West in the Woodroffe/Greenbank/Baseline area. Unfortunately, the city is re-vamping their field assignments and we have not been told if we will get this field again. See google maps: entrance to park.

The OCSL regular season usually starts the week of Victoria Day. (Yes, there are Monday games on the holiday.) The NCISL will be the same or may start a week earlier, when the city officially opens the fields.

Note: Everyone should check the OCSL and NCISL websites before their first few games. Weather can cause the city to close the fields with little to no notice.

Usually. The club tries to reserve time for exhibition games on the outdoor, artificial turf field at Ottawa U during the first 2 weeks of May. Given decent weather, the city usually opens the grass fields to soccer the week before the OCSL season begins and your coach may schedule an exhibition game and/or practice then.

The OCSL schedules are posted on the OCSL website. They might not be provided until the Friday before the games start, i.e. the Friday of the Victoria Day long weekend. They may be posted earlier, but there are no guarantees.

See the NCISL website for their schedules.

The managers and coaches of the teams are volunteers. The men's teams usually have a single player-coach-manager. The women usually have a player-manager and then cajole a boyfriend, husband or other Spitfire to coach. All players are expected to help the managers/coaches. Anyone interested in becoming a coach is welcome. The club has a budget dedicated to coach development.

Check out the team assignment sections in the Summer registration page.

These are practices/scrimmages held at the "Minto" artificial turf field at the Nepean Sportsplex on Woodroffe just south of Hunt Club. The city assigns us times, often unpleasant ones. You are warned.

Regardless of the times allotted to us, all players are expected to attend the Minto practices or have the courtesy to let their coach (or the registrar) know not to expect them. It is difficult to arrange a good practice or scrimmage if you do not know who will be present. Furthermore, the coaches use the pre-season to figure out who has the skill and reliability for what team and who should be assigned to a waitlist.

*To e-mail the registrar, send an e-mail to our contact address (at bottom) with subject=registrar. Returning players can send to the registrar directly; you know their e-mail addresses. (We put only the contact address on the website to prevent spammers getting our executives' personal addresses.)

If the team(s) you want to, and have the skill to, play on have too many players, you may be waitlisted.

Waitlist players are free to continue practicing with their team and participate in all club activities but are only used for the league games on an as-needed basis. Waitlist players usually get bumped to full-time status within the first 6 weeks of the season due to injuries/vacations so we strongly urge players to continue coming out and participating. We do refund money to players that missed any games due to their waitlisted status.

It is up to the teams to enter tournaments. Consult your manager.

Refund information for a particular season is published in the registration policy for that season. See our Club page.

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