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There are also those sports that break down on
generational lines-bocce, which is a game favoured by
older men, and soccer. While it is likely that these
games were played informally as early as the first decades
of the 20th century, they really came into their own
post-1950. In Edmonton, indoor bocce courts are
available at the Italian Cultural Centre and the Italian
Senior's Centre. Prior to it's expansion, the Italian
Senior's Centre also had an outdoor court. The
Società Bocciofila, based at the Italian Cultural Centre,
has participated in competitions with teams from BC.
Boccie is very much a "male" only activity and
those who are not playing on the bocce courts play cards and
drink espresso. More recently, women's leagues have been
established at both centres. In Calgary, according to
Antonella Fanella, the Calgary Italian Club in 1974 was
instrumental in setting up a bocce club and the Sportsman
Dinner Association a means of fundraising to support sports
activities.
Soccer is a young person's game, though, its audience
extends across generations. In the 1950s, in Edmonton
and Calgary there was the critical mass of young men to
initiate teams. In 1956, Alberto Romano, Lino Massolin,
Angelo Cioni, Terry Ius and Mario Finot established the
Juventus Soccer Team under the sponsorship of the Calgary
Italian Society. In Edmonton, the desire to
build a club house was so strong that community leaders such
as Angelo Biasutto and Pat Giannone went to the City of
Edmonton and got land donated. When they discovered
that it would cost $35,000 to build a club house, they chose
instead to use the land to build the Santa Maria Goretti
Parish. The Ital-Canadian Soccer Club was created in 1957 with
the aim to promote good sportsmanship in all sports, in particular the sport of soccer.
The Club raised funds through dinner dances, concerts, etc., to enable the
soccer team to play indoors and outdoors. They also
provided sponsorship of the Ital-Canadian Men's Soccer Team,
Premiere Division. The Calgary and Edmonton Juventus [Latin for
"youth"]
Clubs were formed and the Edmonton/Calgary rivalry continues
to this day. The people who played in the early teams
went on to volunteer to keep soccer alive in Calgary and
Edmonton. These include Mario Molinari, Mimmo Longo,
Tony Durante. The games also had a social function in that
families went and young people could meet and eventually
fall in love and marry.
With the international interest in soccer stimulated by World Cup
games, the media would regularly descend on Edmonton's Little Italy
for commentary on the action. The community-at-large would be
exposed to the "male-only" atmosphere of intense soccer
rivalry, espresso, card games and all of those aspects of Italian
cultural life based on sports.
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