Floods Extend Dates for Largest-Ever Canton Cup Tourney

Standing water from this weeks' flooding had 2011 Canton Cup organizers fighting to reschedule more than 1,200 soccer games for the 3-day event.

Now, the 29th annual soccer tournament, which starts at 5 p.m. today, will last through Monday and what is being called a "substantially changed" schedule.

After feverishly working for 48 hours to find dry enough fields, the Canton Soccer Club posted its latest, and hopefully final, updated schedule early Friday morning to its Web site, mapping out games for the 781 teams playing here in the tournament.

The games start at 5 p.m. today at various fields across the township. Almost 13,000 players and their families have led to an estimate of more than 50,000 people, are expected to flood Canton during the next four days.

Flood is one word that tournament director Darryl Noel could do without. He said he worked all day Thursday to find alternate playing fields after many planned sites were drenched by what some are calling a “100-year storm” on Wednesday. The storm brought up to 4 inches of rain to some parts of the township.

“We were always going to play, it’s supposed to be nice weather by Friday night and Saturday morning. It was just a question of if we could find enough usable fields,” Noel said.

The tournament requires about 70 fields for the 29th annual soccer competition. The teams, comprised of boys ages 8 to 19 and girls ages 8 to 14, are expected to play more than 1,200 games. Noel said games will be played at Independence Park, the high school campus, Heritage Park, Griffin Park, Barchester Park and Flodin Park, with some extra fields garnered from Freedom Park.

The games are held all three days, lasting from 5-9 p.m. Friday, 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Sunday. The groups are arranged in different divisions by skill, including premier, select, travel and recreational.

Noel said because of the wet fields, the final competitions will be held Monday at Independence Park. He said the rain has one benefit: Local businesses and restaurants get an extra day from visiting shoppers. “The clothes shops may also get a boost, as it never fails that you pack for certain weather and it changes when you get there,” he said.

Canton Cup organizers are also holding a Memorial Day ceremony at noon on Saturday at Independence Park. Township Supervisor Phil Lajoy is the guest speaker. Following the ceremony, a special game will be played between the Michigan Bucks and the Indiana Invaders teams from the Professional Development League.

Residents are urged to take care as traffic will be heavy in some areas. Patrick Nemecek, township director of public safety, said that the speed limit on Denton Road will be 25 mph from 1,000 feet north of Procter Road to 1,000 feet south of the southern boundary of Independence Park during the tournament. Parking will also be prohibited on the east side of Denton from Times to Landsdowne during the games, he said.