Vol. I  ·  No. 1  ·  Special ReportSpring 2026  ·  Cowichan Valley$0.00  ·  Free On The Sideline

The Waddy Cup Special

A Special Report on Eight Survivors, One Trophy, and the Man on the Whistle.
TIDE Soccer ◆ Presents16 Teams · 6 Rounds · 22 Games · 1 ChampionInk Still Wet · Hot Off The Press
Spring 2026 · The Stakes

The Knife
Drops Now.

Sixteen teams entered the Don Waddy Cup. Eight have already gone home. What follows is a special report on the eight that lived — and on the man whose name they’re chasing.

By J. Clarke  ·  The TIDE Cup Desk
“Eight teams. One bracket. No second chances on the grass — only the lifeline of the losers’ room. The Cup will be lifted by whoever bleeds the least.” — Cup Desk
Round 1: DoneGauntlet: May 11 & May 18Final Four: Looms
By The Numbers

Eight Survive.
Four Will Reach The Cathedral.

8Survivors of Round One
14Games Still To Come
2Losses And You’re Out
1Cup. Bearing His Name.
“Forest Green for the treble. Pink with the dark-horse blade. Everyone else better be hungry.” — The Pundits, Unanimous-ish
D.W.
Don Waddy
Whistle  ·  Coach  ·  Father
In Memoriam  ·  Cowichan Valley
In Memoriam · A Cup In His Name

The Quiet
Gentleman
Of The Pitch.

A trophy is a strange way to remember a man who never wanted the spotlight. But here we are — and Don, somewhere, is laughing through the moustache.

Don Waddy was, by every account anyone in the Valley will offer, the most beloved referee in Cowichan Valley football. He was not necessarily the best — and he would have been the first to tell you that, with a shrug and a grin. He didn’t need to be the best. He was the one you wanted on the line when your kid was eight and crying about a corner kick. He was the one who’d give the coach a heads-up before the booking, not after.

He was a coach. A linesman. A player. A father to Megan and JennaJenna’s husband, Pat Foley, won the Spring League with Team Pink alongside Don himself just a few short years ago. The Cup family tree runs deep.. A grandfather to Eli, Ezra, and Olive. He was a Red Seal joiner who could build you a kitchen and tell you a story while he did it. He coached his daughter Jenna’s “Cowichan Chatter Champs”A youth squad Don coached to a provincial title. Anyone who watched Don coach knew where the love came from — he treated every kid like they were his. to a provincial title. He did it the only way he knew how — with a calm voice, a steady hand, and that trademark moustache that earned a thousand smiles before kickoff.

And he played — as recently as four springs ago, pulling on a Spring League jersey for Team PinkDon’s last Spring League title: Jenna led the way, son-in-law Pat Foley alongside, a duo of Clarkes on the roster. The current Pink dark-horse storyline echoes Don’s last on-pitch chapter. and lifting one final trophy with his daughter Jenna and son-in-law Pat by his side.

The connection runs everywhere. Every roster has a Don thread, if you pull. He was the soft-spoken, full-of-energy uncle of the Valley — the one whose smile was the loudest part of the conversation. The Cup that bears his name is not because he won the most. It’s because he gave the most, and asked for the least.

Lift it for him. He’d tell you that you didn’t have to. Then he’d hold the door for whoever did.

A Guide For The Uninitiated

How This Whole
Damn Thing Works.

The format has more layers than a good lasagna and fewer mercy rules than your grade-five basketball coach. Here’s the whole thing, no smoke.

01

Round One · Single Elimination

Sixteen Walk In. Eight Walk Out.

Every team in the Spring League — all sixteen of them — enters the Don Waddy Cup. There are no byes, no seeds, no mercy. Two games every Monday over weeks 3–6: 6:30 and 7:35 on the grass. Lose once and you’re out. The eight survivors advance to the Gauntlet.

Outcome  ·  8 eliminated  ·  8 advance
02

Rounds 2–4 · The Gauntlet

Lose Once And Bleed.
Lose Twice And Vanish.

Eight teams, double elimination, three rounds. The Winners’ Bracket holds your unbeaten — every loss costs you. Drop down to the Losers’ Bracket and one more loss sends you home. By the time the Gauntlet ends, four teams remain alive. Four others are watching from the picnic tables.

Across  ·  Weeks 7–9  ·  4 to the Final Four
03

Rounds 5–6 · The Final Four

Clean Slate. New Bracket. Win Or Go Home.

Four teams. Two semi-finals. One Grand Final. No more second chances, no more losers’ bracket lifelines. Whoever lifts the Cup at the end of Round 6 puts their name beside Don’s, beside George’s last year, beside whoever takes it next.

Final Whistle  ·  One Champion  ·  No Mercy
The Survivors · One Card Per Team · Click To Expand

The Eight Who Lived.

Round One sorted the field. Now we line them up, side by side, the way a proper Cup report demands. Three favourites. One dark horse. Three teams the pundits have already buried — and one that polled last.

No. 1 Survivor

Forest
Green

6–0 · Untouched · “The Pundits’ Pick”
Treble Hunters
The only team in the league that walked through the regular season without a single loss. Beat Red 3–0 in their Round 1 opener — Antony VanCleave with a brace, Kevin Smith one — and looked like they barely put on a sweat. The Commish runs the front line, the metronome runs the middle, the keeper runs the goal. They are the line everyone else is running away from.
Spine: Antony VanCleave · Justin Parish · Kevin Smith · Curtis “Flynner” Flynn
R1 Goals: VanCleave (2) · Smith (1)
If anyone is going to be on the trophy plaque this June, Vegas, Paps, and your nan are all calling it green. The treble — League title, Waddy Cup, Poppy Cup — is genuinely on the table for this group, and they know it. The pressure is now on them to live up to a coronation that’s already been mostly written.
No. 2 Survivor

Purple

5W–1L · +18 GD · “Coming For The Commish”
Co-Favourite
Demolished Grey 3–0 to advance and have the best goal differential in the league. Three keepers in the league’s top three: Jonte Lohsen, Jai Irvine, John Lohsen. That isn’t rotation — that’s a dynasty in goal. Jeevan Dhami leads the line and is among the league’s top scorers.
Trio in goal: Jonte Lohsen · Jai Irvine · John Lohsen
Up top: Jeevan Dhami (12 pts)
The Pink upset earlier in the regular season is the only blemish, and they responded with three straight 4+ goal beatdowns. If Forest Green slips, this is the team most likely to step over them. Watch the Lohsen-Irvine-Lohsen rotation in the Cup — three world-class shot-stoppers in a knockout format is borderline unfair.
No. 3 Survivor

White

5W–1L · 3 GA in 6 Games · “The Hunters”
Quietly Lethal
Walked their Round 1 against Gold 3–0 and barely made the headlines doing it — that’s the White way. They don’t need a press release. The slow-strangle 1–0 specialists let you have the ball, then take everything else. Three goals conceded all spring. Three.
Spine: Alexander Smith (5G 4A) · Tim DenHartigh (3 CS) · Connor Crichton
Don’t call it silent. Call it inevitable. White is the team you don’t want to draw in a knockout — they don’t beat themselves, they don’t give up shape, and they have a goalkeeper who has authored three clean sheets across this short spring. In a Cup format with no mercy, that profile wins games.
No. 4 Survivor

Kelly
Green

2W–4L · “The Thugs” · Fading?
Predicted Out · Gauntlet
Beat Lime 2–0 in Round 1 and the league exhaled. Self-styled “won’t give you an inch” merchants who specialize in physical, get-in-your-face football. The pundits have them buried in Round 2, but this is also the team that beat Navy 1–0 in the regular season. They don’t read the scouting reports. They write the bookings.
Engine: Mike Hahn · Xit’luk · Ryan Flynn
Two consecutive Mondays without a goal coming into the Cup. The Sin Bin watch list reads like their team sheet. They are exactly the kind of team that knocks Forest Green out by halftime of week 7 and then loses 4–0 the next week. Either way, you’ll remember the game.
No. 5 Survivor

Navy

4W–2L · “Welcome To The Middle”
Live Outsider
Outlasted Teal 4–3 in the most thrilling Round 1 game on the docket — and the scoresheet told the story: four different scorers. Herman Parmar, Cyr Becker, Everett Piper, Rowan Smith. That’s not a one-man show riding a hot striker; that’s a side that pulls goals out of the whole roster. Herman is tied for the league lead at 14, but the depth is what makes Navy a knockout problem.
Up top: Herman Parmar (14G — league lead)
R1 Goals: Parmar · Becker · Piper · Smith
Engine: Tristan Price · Iyanna & Rowan Smith
If Navy gets a hot Herman Parmar weekend, they could legitimately win this whole thing. If they leak goals at the back the way they did against Orange, they could lose to anyone. Few teams are this binary. White is exactly the kind of opponent who could expose the Navy back line — assuming the bracket draws them together in the Gauntlet.
No. 6 Survivor

Silver

2W–4L · “Three-Week Hangover”
Predicted Out · Gauntlet
Got past Yellow 2–1 in Round 1 — narrow, but a win is a win and that’s all anyone remembers. The headline of their spring was an early-season Royal Blue scalp, then three Mondays of getting hit for 5, 5, and 7. The pundits have already put a fork in them. The pundits have been wrong before.
In goal: Keeth Winia (22 GA)
Silver’s draw matters more than Silver’s form. Catch a tired team in a back-to-back, get the keeper to make four big saves, and suddenly the bracket has a shock. Don’t bet on it. Don’t laugh if it happens, either.
No. 7 Survivor

Black

3W–1PKW–1PKL–1L · “Talent · Swagger · Demerits”
Polled Last · Yes, Last
Beat Orange 3–2 in a thriller — Gideon Clarke, Isaiah Clarke, and Mansour Elmahdi all on the scoresheet. The team’s heartbeat is Laina Allen: super upbeat, super competitive, smiling through every tackle, the kind of player who makes a team a team. Black is in form on the pitch and in the referee’s notebook — two of their three Sin Bin Watch names took the field on Monday. Unsubtle. Maybe unstoppable.
Threat: Josh Gilbert (9G 3A — top-five scorer) · Gideon Clarke · Isaiah Clarke
Spirit: Laina Allen — the engine that doesn’t stop smiling
Watch: Mansour Elmahdi · Isaiah Clarke · Justin Paulson
Polled dead last among league pundits before the Cup — which is interesting, because they are on a Round-1-PK-shootout streak that suggests they thrive in chaos. Two shootouts in two weeks coming into the Cup. If this Cup goes through penalty kicks, Black is the team you do not want to be drawing.
No. 8 Survivor · The Dark Horse

Pink

1W–1PKW–2PKL–2L · “George’s Heist”
Dark Horse · Watch For The Foil
Pink finished 9th in the regular season. They drew Royal Blue — who finished 3rd — in Round 1. Then they beat them 2–1. Chris Watson and Darius Anoushehpour on the scoresheet. The biggest upset of R1, and the only one that took out a top-three regular-season finisher. He took Pink to first place in the league last year. Lifted the Waddy. Got second in the Poppy. The roster turns over, the captain doesn’t.
Captain: George White (c) — Round 1: 0 apps, 1 absence
R1 Goals: Chris Watson · Darius Anoushehpour
Through-line: Chris “Watty” Watson
George wasn’t on the field in Round 1. Pink won anyway. That should scare every other captain in the bracket — this is a side so saturated in George’s fingerprints they advanced without him. Last year: 1st in the league, 1st in the Waddy, 2nd in the Poppy. But before that? Always at the bottom. Always took scraps off the trash heap. Never had a chance at winning. Then we freed him up and look what he did. Always crafty. Always a great team guy. Cannot beat his heart, ever — huge kind heart, brings a team together and turns it into a fighting machine. The pundits should know better than to call him a dark horse twice.
The Forest Green File

The Treble
Is On The Table.And They Know It.

League title. Waddy Cup. Poppy Cup. Three trophies, one squad, one spring. It hasn’t been done. Forest Green is two-thirds of the way there.

Six games. Six wins. The only side in the league that walked through the regular season untouched. The Commish — actual league commissioner Antony VanCleave — leads the team in points. Justin Parish runs the midfield with six assists. Kevin Smith scores on a metronome. Curtis “Flynner” Flynn has three clean sheets in the goal. There is no apparent weakness. There is, in fact, a worrying lack of weakness.

“You don’t beat Forest Green. You hope Forest Green beats themselves.” — Cup Desk

The path is clear. Get through the Gauntlet. Win the Final Four. Take the Cup. Then carry it into the Poppy Cup as the favourite — same squad, same shape, same look in the eye. The treble has never been done in this league. Forest Green doesn’t need to talk about it. They just need to do it. And the league is watching to see if they can.

The Counter-Argument

The Bracket
Has Knives.Forest Green Is Not Untouchable.

Here’s the case for Forest Green not winning. They drew Purple in the Gauntlet WB Round 2 — May 18, 6:30pm. Purple has the best goal differential in the league. Three keepers in the top three. The deepest scoring threat outside Forest Green’s own dressing room. If there is a team that can reach into the Forest Green psyche and pull, it’s the team with the dynasty in goal.

Then there’s the dark horse. Then there’s George.

Forest Green hasn’t been pushed. Nobody has tested them in a knockout, where the margins are sharper and the stakes are coronation-or-disaster. The treble is genuinely possible. So is a 60-minute disaster against Purple in mid-May that ends with a green-clad squad in the Losers’ Bracket and a confidence wobble that doesn’t recover.

“They’ve been chuckling at the rest of the league all spring. The Cup will see if they laugh in May.”

Treble watch is real. So is the trapdoor. The next two Mondays will tell us which side of the line this team is on.

The George Watch · A Captain Worth Watching

The Quiet
Heist.
Again.

George White spent years finishing last — because he kept taking the projects nobody else wanted. Last year, freed from that, he finished first in the league, first in the Waddy, and second in the Poppy. Same captain in 2026. Different roster. Same quiet danger.

George finished first in the league last year. First in the Waddy. Second in the Poppy. Three trophies. One spring. One captain.

But before that? Always took scraps off the trash heap. Never had a chance at winning. Year after year, end of the table, end of the conversation, the patron saint of the cast-offs and the special projects and the kids the other captains skipped twice on draft night.

Then we freed him up. And look what he did.

Always crafty. Always a great team guy. Cannot beat his heart — ever. Huge kind heart, contagious all the way through the dressing room. He brings a team together and makes them a fighting machine. That is the line the pundits keep forgetting to write down, and the truth they keep tripping over.

George chose pink last spring. He chose it again this spring. The jersey colour is the same; the roster underneath it isn’t. Almost every name has turned over from last year’s championship side — except for one. Chris “Watty” WatsonThe lone holdover from last year’s championship roster. Watty has been beside George for both pink runs — captain and through-line. Everyone else on the 2026 sheet is new ink. has been beside George for both runs. Captain and through-line. Everyone else is new ink.

The 2026 squad — once again — is a roster nobody else picked. They beat Royal Blue 2–1 to get out of Round 1 — Chris Watson and Darius Anoushehpour on the scoresheet — and they did it without their captain on the field. George (c) was a one-game absence in Round 1George White, the captain, did not play Round 1 — 0 apps, 1 absence on the official sheet. The team advanced anyway. The foil narrative writes itself: this side is so saturated in George’s fingerprints they can win without him in the dugout.. The team advanced anyway. That is the kind of detail the bookmakers underline. The “dark horse” label is what always gets slapped on George’s teams — right up until George is holding the trophy and the rest of the league is scrambling to remember why they didn’t pick him in the first place.

The pundits will be wrong about George. The only question is in which round.

Valley Royalty · A Family Vignette

The Irvines.
Cowichan Built.

A surname that has been threaded through Cowichan Valley football for decades. In 2026, three Irvines are pulling on jerseys. Don’t bet against any of them.

If you have been around Cowichan football long enough, you know an Irvine. The family is, by any honest reckoning, Valley football royalty — the kind of name that ends up on plaques in clubhouses and, at this point, on roster sheets in three different brackets. Jim IrvineJim Irvine — Jai’s father — a pioneering figure in Cowichan Valley Soccer Association history. The kind of person you can trace half the league back to within two handshakes. The Irvine name has been on local pitches for generations because Jim put it there., Jai’s father, was one of the founding pillars of the Cowichan Valley club. The lineage is direct. The talent is loud.

In Spring 2026, Jai is on Purple — and not just on Purple, but in the goal for Purple, where he sits as one of the league’s top three keepers. He’s part of the Lohsen-Irvine-Lohsen trio that has been splitting clean sheets all spring. His daughters, Ellie and Sarah, are both real players in their own right and turn up across the Valley scene any time anyone needs a midfielder who knows where to be before the ball does. Jai’s brother Andrew was a great player in his own day; Andrew’s son A.J. Irvine carries the surname forward this year, pulling on the Yellow jersey in the Spring League — quiet, reliable, the kind of midfield engine that doesn’t need the headlines but always shows up in the highlights.

You don’t game-plan against an Irvine. You game-plan around the fact that there are now four of them within a stadium’s walking distance, and they all watch each other’s matches.

If Purple lifts the Cup, Jai’s clean sheet will be on the medal. If Pink does it, an Irvine probably had a hand in stopping a critical shot somewhere along the way. You can’t do this league without them.

The House Card · For Entertainment Purposes Only

Paps Has Filed
His Picks.

The 20-year-old retired keeper — hung up the gloves not for the knees but for the bookmaking ring he now runs full-time — has, of course, filed his Cup ladder. Ranked top to bottom. Per policy, Royal Blue does not appear because Royal Blue is already gone. Paps is, reportedly, “fine.”

Paps wishes to remind the readership that all betting lines are for entertainment purposes only and that the house assumes no liability for losses incurred by patrons who bet against the trends. The $40K Watson parlayA long-running joke in the Paps column. The parlay is, as of this issue, “on a ventilator but breathing.” Whether any of its legs are still alive at the time of Cup printing is a matter of considerable debate. remains, per Paps’ own opaque accounting, “on a ventilator but breathing.” The 2018 Civic remains in the driveway. The casino-on-the-north-end-of-town fund is, as ever, accepting deposits.

Paps was directly contacted by the Cup Desk for comment. His full statement, transcribed verbatim from a voicemail left at 1:14 AM, was as follows:

“Forest Green is the chalk. Pink is the spread. I’m taking Pink against the spread. Don’t ask me why. Tell Brenda at the Cobble Hill bingo hall I’m thinking about her.”

Paps subsequently clarified, via a follow-up text message, that the message was actually for Linda at the Duncan bingo hall, not Brenda — and asked the Desk to delete the prior voicemail before either girlfriend hears it. The Cup Desk respectfully declines to weigh in.

◆

Lift The Cup.

For the eight teams still alive. For the eight on the picnic tables. For George, watching from the back of the field. For the Irvines. For the Commish. For Don.

The Waddy Cup Special  ·  Spring 2026 Special Report  ·  TIDE Soccer
Filed by J. Clarke from the side of the grass field, 6:29pm

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