The 2023 season will be the tenth anniversary of the Grand Marais Polar Bears only Northern Lights League soccer championship. But with a large team, fast forwards and upperclassmen leadership, there’s a buzz around Polar Bear soccer once again.
“I don’t see why we can’t have a winning season,” said GM Head Coach Nick Paul. “If we can keep (the team) pumped up, we’ll be pretty good.”
Paul took over the team this year. He was an active youth soccer player in travel leagues based out of the Flint area and also coached hockey at various levels, but this is Paul’s first time coaching soccer.
Most of the time spent with the team has been based on conditioning. The Polar Bears got a little bit of a late start to the preseason practice schedule, so the Grand Marais soccer team has yet to incorporate the ball into team drills. Instead, it’s been all about making sure the team can continue to play hard for the full contest.
“If you can’t run, you can’t play soccer,” Paul said. “I want to see hard soccer and get out there and leave everything on the field – tired, but proud of what they did.”
Bolstering the team will be seniors Emma Bell and Teagan Lawrence, along with a pair of juniors. With how small the schools are in the NLL, upperclassmen come at a premium, but for Grand Marais, it’s even more rare. This will be the first time there will be seniors on the soccer team since the 2017 season.
No field positions are set yet until the players can run some more drills. The Polar Bears do have their goalie situation set with Ethan Bell. He was the primary goal scorer for Grand Marais last year, but also played about a half each game in goal.
The coach said Bell is excited to be in the net.
“Ethan is definitely my starter in goal. I’m going to put a strong defense in front of him. If we have to put upperclassmen in front of him, we’ll do that and then use speed up front,” Paul said.
The Polar Bears start the season with both sides of the H-58 rivalry, travelling to Munising Baptist on Thursday, September 7 and then hosting the Bobcats on Tuesday, September 12. The two Alger County schools will play five other teams across the league before ending the season at the NLL postseason tournament on Beaver Island on October 14.
