Hi BIFC Families,
As the fall soccer season begins to wind down, I know many of you have questions regarding your soccer options for the winter season. BIFC will have soccer programs for kids of all ages this winter. These programs will include Winter Select Soccer, Winter Development Academy and indoor soccer classes for kids in the youngest age groups. Please see below for information about our winter program options.
WHAT PROGRAMS ARE AVAILABLE FOR MY CHILD?
For kids in kindergarten-2nd grade, we will be having Winter Indoor Soccer classes. These classes will meet once per week in the gyms at Halilts Elementary School, Blakely Elementary School and The Island School in the months of January and February. Classes do not meet on holidays or during BISD school breaks.
For kids born from 1/1/2016 – 7/31/2018, we will have our Winter Development Academy. The Winter Development Academy will begin training in early February and will play a six-week season against other teams from the Northwest Sound Youth Soccer Association. These games will be in Kitsap County and on the Olympic Peninsula. This program is available to new players as well as current BIFC players.
For kids born from 1/1/2011 – 12/31/2015, we will have Winter Select Soccer. These age groups will play competitive soccer in the North Puget Sound League. The NPSL competes all over the Puget Sound region. Training for this group will begin in late February after the Fall Select teams have completed their postseason tournaments from the fall season. This program is available to new players as well as current BIFC players.
WHAT AGE FORMAT ARE WE GOING TO USE FOR THE WINTER/SPRING LEAGUES?
As many of you know, U.S. Soccer will be changing the age grouping format for competitive soccer beginning in the spring. After much consideration, we have decided to continue to group our teams by birth year (January 1st-December 31st) for the winter/spring season. This is the format that the NPSL will continue to use until spring tryouts. Since the league is going to be using this format for the winter, it’s just going to be simpler this way. We will move to the new age format system (August 1st-July 31st) when we hold tryouts for the 2026 teams in the spring.
WILL TEAMS WHO ARE MOVING TO 11V11 OR 9V9 IN THE SPRING “PLAY UP” FOR THE WINTER SEASON?
No. The change in age format that will take effect in the spring would make this too messy. For example, players who are playing on our current 2014 teams who were born from 1/1/2014-7/31/2014 will be moving to U13 (11v11) in the spring, but players on those same 2014 teams who were born from 8/1/2014-12/31/14 will be playing U12 (9v9) again in the spring. Therefore, all teams will play in their appropriate age divisions based on the current format.
ARE WE GOING TO HAVE OUR TRADITIONAL BLUE AND WHITE TEAMS, OR WILL WE ATTEMPT TO MAKE EQUALLY-BALANCED TEAMS?
We will continue to use the Blue/White format for our winter teams. For age groups that have more than two teams, we will have one Blue team and multiple, equally-balanced teams with the players who are not assigned to the Blue team.
WILL THERE BE TRYOUTS TO ASSESS THE PLAYERS?
No. We’ve been working with most of these players on a regular basis since June. We have an excellent grasp of what skills each player has. Some players may be moved up or down from their current team based on their performance throughout the fall season.
WILL THE CURRENT TEAMS FROM THE FALL SEASON REMAIN INTACT FOR THE WINTER SEASON?
For the most part yes, but not exactly. At this time we do not know who is going to sign up to play in the winter. We will open up the registration for this league to any players who want to play. We may have some Rec League players who wish to join this league, and we may have some Select players who choose to take the winter season off. We will allocate players to rosters once registration has been completed. We reserve the right to move players up or down from their current teams based on their skill level.
WHEN WILL REC SOCCER BEGIN AGAIN?
Spring Rec Soccer will begin again on April 20th, 2026. Registration for Spring Rec will open after January 1st.
WHAT WILL THE REGISTRATION PROCESS LOOK LIKE?
We will open registration for our competitive programs to current Select and Development Academy players before we open it up to the general public. This will give our current Select and DA players the opportunity to continue with their current teams. Registration for players who are currently playing on a Fall Select or DA team will open this Friday, November 7th.
On Friday, November 21st, registration for Winter/Spring Select Soccer and the Winter Development Academy will be opened up to the public.
Players will be placed on teams on a first come, first served basis. We have a limited number of roster spots available for each competitive team; 12 players per team for DA, 14 players per 9v9 team and 18 players per 11v11 team. Please be sure to register early to ensure that your player gets a spot on a team.
Registration for the Winter Indoor Soccer Classes will also open on Friday, November 7th, and kids will be accepted on a first come, first served basis.
If there are any questions that were not answered here, please feel free to reach out to Ian McCallum, Rebecca Ringdahl Miller or myself.
Thank you,
Jim Handy
Executive Director
Head Coach B15 Blue
Bainbridge Island FC
