The second season of Canadian Soccer League action has come and gone for FC Whitehorse, and while expectations rose in advance of the season, the results ultimately did not rise with them. An exciting and back-and-forth 4-3 loss at home to Canadian Lionpack is the type of game the Freezers hoped to play all season, but the overall result paints a nuanced and frustrating picture.
With an average of just under 22,000 fans at every home match, the Freezers were 17th in the league in home attendance. President Jaheem Byam spoke after his club's final match and expressed an understandable disappointment at the lack of progress. "Stagnation is a difficult thing in football" said Byam. "As a club, we want to move into the next tier in the standings. The problem is that there are a bunch of other clubs hungry to do exactly the same. Outperforming a league like this is really difficult to do, and frankly, everyone here knows that we need to be doing more. The fans here are passionate, but they want to be watching their team win matches, and we simply did not do that enough this year." Asked about his own future in football, the soon to be 70 year old was adamant that he still had the necessary drive to compete. "Retirement isn't in my plans anytime soon, at least voluntarily" joked Byam. My goal remains moving this club to be the best that it can. And I know that I still have that fire. And looking around this organization, there are a lot of people ready for much more."
FC Whitehorse finished their second season in the top tier with an 8-5-25 record, which put them in 16th place in the league table. That is an improvement of 5 league points and one place, much lower than was expected of the club. It was a tale of 3 managers this season for the Freezers. The club's original manager Oros Bala lost his first 6 matches this season before his contract was terminated. His former assistant Corwyn Westlake became the interim manager, finishing with a 5-4-15 record before his term was ended by the club. The new permanent manager is Raley Treffle, who ended the season on a bit of a high note, with a 3-1-4 record.
Defensively, the Freezers didn't improve much from last year conceding 106 goals (17th in the league). The 51 goals they scored (14th) were a solid improvement over the 31 scored a year ago. Whitehorse was close to the midtable in terms of shots taken and allowed, so they will need to do a better job in the future converting on their opportunities and not allowing their opponents to score as easily. The team remained very disciplined and only had 21 yellow cards (3rd) and 2 reds (T5th).
While manager Raley Treffle does want things to turn around for Whitehorse, he wanted to emphasize the need to allow the younger players to develop. "Patience is very much like money: people think that they have a lot more of it than they actually do" said Treffle, continuing his love of metaphors in the press room. "The young players that we have been playing are still that: young players. The only way these guys are going to be able to learn from their mistakes is if they are allowed to make them. We want to win here, and the expectations are such that we need to start doing it sooner rather than later. But I am not going to say that it's all going to fall into place right away. We will take the time we need to adjust and get better, and give everything we have out on the pitch. That's all we can really do at the end of the day."
Noteworthy individual performances were hard to come by for Whitehorse. Johan Nix lead the team in scoring with 10 goals, leading him to another easy victory as FC Whitehorse's player of the year. Forwards Josemisco and Rókus Bencsik did not make any notable positive gains, each only netting 8 goals. Marthaldo, Serginho, and Virgilio Rentería had 4 goals each. Leonard Nunez, though solid in defence, continued a worrying trend of being undisciplined, leading the club with 7 yellow cards. In goal, Zavala and Rubinho both ended the season with 2 clean sheets a piece, despite the fact that Zavala started 30 matches and Rubinho only had 8.
During Johan Nix's end of season media address, the 32 year old midfielder and team captain put his focus on the fans, showing his appreciation for the support that the club got this season. "Far too much is made about the attendance figures in terms of the fans who didn't attend matches this year" said Nix. "What we really need to put more focus on is that 20,000 fans or more showed up to our stadium every week, wore those green jerseys, and cheered us on. I want to thank each and every one of them that came out this year. It really does mean a lot. The season can be long and difficult, but stuff like that makes it feel all the more rewarding."
With 18 players still on the roster heading into next season, this offseason is expected to be much less busy for the Freezers. Additionally, the club had no major personnel moves to announce, and the coaching staff will remain largely unchanged for the foreseeable future.