WOMEN ON THE WAY HERE.

This summer, Hamilton will have a women’s team in the top development soccer league in Ontario and the men likely won’t be far behind.

Hamilton United, which already runs male and female teams up to the U-17 level in the high-performance-training Ontario Provincial Development League, has entered League1 Ontario, the senior loop formed by the Ontario Soccer Association in 2014.

League1 is classified as semi-professional or pro-am, although those are more designations of a commitment to a professionally run structure than to paying the players. Some teams on the men’s side do pay but most women’s teams, including Hamilton’s, are counting on NCAA players to form a significant part of the roster and U.S. colleges prevent their players from training or playing with paid athletes.

Hamilton United Elite Soccer Club is a talent-development-focused entity founded in 2013 by the Saltfleet-Stoney Creek, Mount Hamilton Youth and Ancaster clubs. As part of Canada Soccer’s and the OSA’s Player Pathways, which were designed to identify and advance elite players, it operates OPDL teams for both boys and girls aged 13 to 17. And now it’s adding League1 to its women’s pyramid, with the men to follow soon.

“The quality of soccer is tremendous. It’s taken the best players to a higher level,” Hamilton United executive Luigi Iantomasi says. “Once their OPDL was done the women used to play university soccer or, essentially, recreational.

“As part of our long-term development we thought it would be great to have League1. We decided to go with the women’s team because our girls have had more success at the older age groups.”

The OSA’s Dino Rossi, the League1 commissioner, said organizations cannot enter both new men’s and new women’s teams in the league in the same year because “a lot of the community-based groups have never had to operate at a semi-pro level, and there are high standards. We felt it was better for them to concentrate on one team in the first season.”

It’s expected that Hamilton United will launch a men’s League1 team for 2019. In both the men’s and women’s leagues, Oakville and London are the closest centres with teams in operation.

Iantomasi says Hamilton will play its nine home games at McMaster’s Ron Joyce Stadium.

There are now 13 women’s teams and 18 men’s teams in League1. The women have an 18-game schedule which will begin in early May and end with championship play on Labour Day weekend. The league used to go deeper into September but by August teams were losing a significant number of players to U.S. college commitments.

Hamilton, for instance, is likely to count heavily upon the players turning 18 this year who carried Saltfleet-Stoney Creek to competitive successes through their ageclass eligibility. Most of them are headed for college soccer so, Iantomasi says, other players, including OPDL call-ups, will get more chances to play in August.

“They’re young, but lots of players in this league are young,” he says.

United, coached by Francisco Font, has already been holding tryouts and had a number of college players, home for the holidays, working out with the team.

As well as developing talent, League1 provides a chance for its players to showcase their skills in front of U.S. college scouts and the staff of the various Canadian national teams.