With Lost Season, Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club Looks Ahead to Summer Camps

Inter-squad matches and friendlies with clubs from the Amateur Youth Soccer Association could happen when the state allows games to take place.

DULUTH, Minn. – As organized youth sports slowly start getting back on the practice fields, some teams won’t have that benefit due to many facilities being closed in the city of Duluth. Case in point, the Gitchi Gummi Soccer Club.

The club has nearly 600 players on 40 teams from U-9 to U-18. Their main season was lost due to the coronavirus pandemic, so now organizers are looking ahead to next month when restrictions could be lifted, allowing the club to at least hold soccer camps.

“We hope we will have moved through the phases where we can get each of our teams three sessions a week for five weeks. We’re really looking at it now basically as a preparation for high school season. That’s one of our missions in the club is that we want to develop good teams ourselves, but we want to develop players who can then perform and have good high school seasons,” said club director Barry Chastey.

Chastey added that inter-squad matches and friendlies with clubs from the Amateur Youth Soccer Association could happen when the state allows games to take place.