{"id":12983,"date":"2015-12-21T18:50:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-21T23:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=12983"},"modified":"2016-01-13T14:50:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T19:50:16","slug":"aurora-sides-added-to-ontario-semi-pro-league-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-sides-added-to-ontario-semi-pro-league-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora sides added to Ontario semi-pro league roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s soccer community reached a major milestone last week by being named one of two teams involved in an expansion into the semi-professional League 1 Ontario next season.<\/p>\n

Operated by Aurora Youth Soccer Club (AYSC), Aurora United FC will field both a men\u2019s and women\u2019s squad, with the core group of players under the age of 23. Along with the addition of U-21 teams, AYSC executive director Jim Brennan said the league \u201ccan allow players to stay with the club in Aurora before finding the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Aurora as newcomers on the men\u2019s side are FC London, North Toronto Nitros, and Toronto Skillz FC. In the women\u2019s division, the league has also added FC London, Darby FC, and Kingston Clippers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a pleasure to welcome these new teams into League1 Ontario,\u201d said League1 Ontario Commissioner Dino Rossi in a statement. \u201cThis continued growth speaks to the strong reputation the league has built over the past two years, and its importance as a part of this province\u2019s High Performance player pathway.\u201d<\/p>\n

League1 Ontario operates as a \u201cpathway\u201d for players on the provincial spectrum to take the next step in professional soccer, a sort of stepping stone to bridge the gap between youth and amateur status and the professional level.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a technical perspective, it is crucial that the province\u2019s best players have accessible, domestically-based opportunities to properly finish their development years,\u201d said Ontario Soccer Association Technical Director, Gary Miller.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe standards-based approach of League1 Ontario ensures players will have the appropriate \u2018finishing-school\u2019 environment, giving them the best preparation possible to take further steps in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanctioned by the Ontario Soccer Association, the budding league has grown in leaps and bounds in its few years of existence. Beginning with a 10-team men\u2019s division in 2014, the league will now operate as a 12-team men\u2019s division and a 7-team women\u2019s division.<\/p>\n

From a tiered perspective, the league is on par with the United Soccer League in North America, one step below the North American Soccer League and two steps below Major League Soccer. <\/p>\n

Running from May to October, fans can expect to see home games played out at Sheppard\u2019s Bush.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aurora\u2019s soccer community reached a major milestone last week by being named one of two teams involved in an expansion into the semi-professional League 1 Ontario next season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3np","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 09:11:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}