Rant of the Day: XUP on Ottawa's soccer mercy rule

For the past couple of weeks, Ottawa’s been talking about the Gloucester Soccer Association’s mercy rule – that no team can be up more than 5 goals above the opposing team. I enjoyed XUP’s take on the controversy last week. Some highlights:

I’m going to be brutal here and say that if your kid has no aptitude for soccer then he shouldn’t be on a league soccer team. If he’s no good but likes soccer, he can play with friends or attend soccer camps or schools until he’s good enough to make a league team. If not, there are lots of other team sports to try and lots of other great ways to stay physically fit.

…Pretending kids are good at something and praising them to the skies when they know they’re not, I think will just confuse them and totally skew their judgment and sense of self. Then you wind up with things like tone-deaf, deluded kids auditioning for American Idol and having their dreams shattered (finally) on national television by a snarky British guy.

Read the entire post…

(It’s been a while since a rant of the day post – are Ottawa bloggers getting mellow?)

** Related: ** Ottawa Soccer Guide