The Jackson Cup began as part of the initial halcyon era of Island sport.
The first hockey game on artificial ice in Canada was played in 1912 at Patrick Arena in Oak Bay. Later that year, in Stockholm, runners Hal Beasley and Tommy Gallon were the first two of what would become hundreds of Island athletes to compete in the Summer Olympics. With a team composed solely of members from the Victoria Lawn Tennis Club, Canada last made it to the Davis Cup final in 1913.
Two years later, the first Jackson Cup championship game was played to decide supremacy in Island soccer. The 100th will be played today at 2:15 p.m. at Royal Athletic Park between the Vancouver Island Soccer League regular-season champion and top-seed Cowichan FC and defending Jackson Cup champion Saanich Fusion. It is a reprise of the 99th final, won 1-0 last year in overtime by the Fusion, for its first Jackson Cup title.
As part of the centenary, a 16-member Jackson Cup team of the half-century has been named. (Vince Greco, executive director of the VISL, said the all-time Cup team was limited to the past 50 years because it would have proved too difficult for the present-day panel of selectors to properly assess players from the first 50).
The Jackson Cup half-century dream team includes World Cup players George Pakos and Jamie Lowery, other multi-capped Canadian national team stars Bob Bolitho, Ike McKay and Brian Robinson, former pros Frank Woods, Drew Ferguson, Brett Pence, Robbie Veenhof and Tyler Hughes, and other standouts Will Moore, John McGuire and Nick Gilbert. The goalkeepers are Shel Brodsgaard and Grant Darley. Rob Williams was named the player/coach, for his total of 10 Jackson Cup championships in both capacities.
Other former notable VISL players have included the likes of former pros Dallas Moen, Iain Baird and Ian Bridge, the latter also a World Cup player for Canada.
Today, the Cowichan and Fusion players will create their own legacies in the 100th final. One already has. The 34-year-old Cowichan FC back-line stalwart Hughes is the only member of the half-century Jackson Cup team still active.
“This is a big honour,” said Hughes, who played pro in the USL and Sweden after an NCAA all-conference career that earned him induction into the Coastal Carolina University Sports Hall of Fame.
“The other players named to the all-time team were guys I looked up to when I was growing up.”
Hughes has anchored the back line of a Cowichan FC team making its fifth Jackson Cup appearance in six years and looking for its third Cup title in that span.
“We’ve grown each year during this run. This is our strongest team in terms of quality and depth,” Hughes said.
“Our goals this year were to win the league [regular-season VISL title], Jackson Cup and the Province Cup. We’ve done the first and hope to take care of the second [today]. There is so much history to the game today. Knowing this would be the 100th Jackson Cup final, we wanted to be a part of it for sure.”
The Jackson Cup final is preceded by the VISL George Smith U-21 Cup final at noon between the Victoria Highlanders and Mid-Island Highlanders.
