by CHRIS BARRY

One might think that a bunch of Caribbean locals chasing a soccer ball around Oxford Park a few times a week wouldn't really be worthy of mention in a fine publication like the one you presently hold in your hands. Fair enough. Except rumour has it that some of these locals are among the finest athletes in the city--yet nobody seems to know about them or the league they play in.

For almost 25 years now, the people who make up the Cari-bec Soccer League have been keeping the sport alive in Montreal and providing their handful of fans with a quality of soccer that many claim equals or even surpasses that of the Montreal Impact. But not a lot of people outside of the West Indian community seem to care.

"I hate to say it and I could be wrong," says LaSalle Renegades goaltender Davey Jones, one of the league's only white players, "but I think a lot of white people get intimidated when they come across a park full of excited black people and just hurry out of the park while the getting is good. Their ignorance is causing them to miss out on some very intense soccer--and it's even free!"

Of course, attendance isn't helped by the fact that the schedule of games isn't really listed anywhere and, unless you're hooked in with one of the players, there are precious few ways of finding out when the action is going to go down. Come on, the league is organized and highly competitive, but it's not that formal.

Balls and beverages

Still, don't let a little thing like that deter you. It certainly hasn't dissuaded the European pro scouts or the Montreal Impact or any number of American college scouts who regularly attend the matches and poach players from the league.

"There have been some incredible players in the Cari-bec league," notes Renegades captain Mark Lee Poy. "Alex Bunbury from the Portuguese Maritimo team started out with us, you know." And I admit that I don't know, but I suppose that if I did know anything about European soccer I'd be pretty impressed.

So if you do happen to be a soccer enthusiast or just want to watch a bunch of very fit young boys run around a field and imagine them naked, Oxford Park in NDG is the place to be--uh, at some time on some date approximately three times a week between the months of May and October.

Cheap beverages are provided at the games by Juicy the Juice Man, a charitable sort who may or may not sell alcoholic drinks, but whose primary motive for vending is to spare you the trip to the depanneur and save you from missing any of the action. Oh yeah, Juicy also sells peanuts! H

The Cari-bec soccer league plays in Oxford Park (now called parc Georges Saint-Pierre) between St-Jacques and Upper Lachine Road starting in May