A pair of early rain delays at the Centennial Sports Park in Virgil May 26 eventually turned into a complete shutdown of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Soccer Club’s season-opening festival following the arrival of stormy weather.

Club president Carrie Plaskett said that while policy does allow games to begin or continue with light to moderate rain, they must be called due to safety reasons when thunder and lightning is seen or heard.

“It wasn’t an ideal launch,” she said. “But we managed to get the Timbits out for a little while so that was good.”

Timbit players are the youngest in the club’s ranks, ranging from three to eight years old.

Older players in the club’s U10 to U13/14 divisions, who were slated to play later in the day, didn’t manage to get in any games.

Despite the implementation of the safety protocols, and the obvious disappointment of not being able to play, Plaskett said players and parents understood that it was just not safe to continue.

“Everyone just took it in stride,” she said.

Now that the opening weekend is behind them, the club’s 2024 season is in full stride with games and practices being held on local fields almost on a daily basis from now until the end of August.

In all, the club oversees three divisions of boys and girls house league play: Timbits, U11/12 and U13/14.

It has two travel teams, one a U12 team and the other in the U14 division.