News

It's been a while since the end of our fall season, and in celebration of Family Day we are hosting a kick-around for everyone aged 3 to 10 that has signed up for Lil Sambas in the past.

We have the full indoor soccer field at the RA Centre reserved on Family Day (this Monday) between 1.30pm and 3pm and its a FREE, active opportunity for kids to get out and run about despite the Ottawa winters. There will not be any structured programming, activities or coaches, just a chance for the kids to play with their parents or peers on the holiday. We'll provide the field and soccer balls, and we'll have the Li'l Sambas admin staff on hand to answer any questions you may have about our upcoming programs. You can always reach us at ottawa@lilsambassoccer.com, but we know some of you prefer to speak to us or ask questions in person before signing up. If your friends are thinking of joining Li'l Sambas this spring, they are also welcome to bring the kids along and ask questions at the dome.

To help us to get an idea of the number of attendees, please fill in this quick registration form (only 5 questions) - CLICK HERE TO REGISTER. If you have more than one kid attending, please fill in a seperate form for each kid.

Although the activity is completely free for parents who are registered on the Li'l Sambas website, we would ask those of you who can to bring some non-perishable food items or a small cash donation for the Ottawa Food Bank.

We do ask that every child is supervised by an adult, this is not a coached/supervised training session.

• Wee Copas ('20, '21, '22) will be on Field #1
• Jabulanis ('18, '19) will be on Field #2
• Tangos ('15, '16, '17) will be on Field #3

Don't forget that our spring programs fill up quickly. Our programs and registration information can be found at https://ottawa.lilsambassoccer.com/upcomingLeagues., and we have some updates on some changes to the programs below.

Registration is open on the website for our spring 2026 programs. The Friday and Saturday development programs, the Sunday house league, our spring girls program and summer camps are online and available for registration. We hope to see you out on the field again and we have made a few changes to the programs based based upon talking to parents at the field, hearing from you by email and from our online survey from last year. Thank you to anyone who made suggestions or provided feedback, and we hope we have made some changes to make Li'l Sambas an even better fit for as many families as possible.

Our Spring Session is now an ELEVEN-week program, rather than an EIGHT-week program.

We always try to adapt to what works best for most parents, and we have noticed that the last couple of weeks in July and the first week or two of August have consistently had the lowest attendance of any week of the year. Whether it is vacations or the heat at that time of year, it just always seems to be the weeks where the lowest percentage of parents can bring the kids. To try to make sure that everyone gets the biggest bang-for-their-buck, we have switched from our traditional schedule of 3 x 8-week seasons with a 1-week break between each, to 2 x 11-week seasons, with a 4-week break in the middle to avoid the low attendence/high temperature weeks at the height of summer.

This year's spring season will begin on May 1st-3rd and run for 11 consecutive weeks to July 10th-12th.

The fall session will then begin on August 14th-16th and run for 11 weeks until October 30th-November 1st (no sessions on Labour Day weekend (the weekend before the first day of school)

The cost per week has been frozen at the same price as last spring.

We have not changed the cost of each week, it is identical to last spring. However, because you are registering for 11-weeks rather than 8-weeks, the TOTAL cost of each 11-week season is higher than it was to register for an 8-week season. We still offer the house league for half-price if you register for the Friday or Saturday PLUS the house league.

The Friday and Saturday Tangos and Aztecas age-groups will now be split into teams and end with a game each week.

We have made some changes to the Tangos development program. Although skill development will still be at the heart of the Tangos sessions, the kids will now be divided into different teams for the duration of the season and will have their own team colour and practice together as a group. Each weekly session will end with a 15-minute game against one of the other teams in that section, helping to move towards developing game readiness and introducing the concept of positions on the field at this age-group. The house league on Sundays will remain all games and will also still be available.

We hope that these changes will be a better fit for as many of you as possible and we look forward to seeing you back on the field in Spring

Yours,

The Li'l Sambas Team