HOME | ARTICLE ARCHIVES | ENTERTAINMENT | JOBS | CLASSIFIEDS | NEWSPAPER ARCHIVES | YOUR OPINION | ABOUT TLN | Email Us

Global Panthers Soccer Night celebrates community and family
Academics, athletics and the arts united by love of global sport
Published February 10, 2010
By Martin C. Barry • TLN

For the second year in a row, students and staff and Laval Liberty High School held a celebration of community, academics, athletics and the arts, all through the medium of one of the globe’s most popular sports — soccer. Last Tuesday afternoon at the school, hundreds of Laval Liberty students took part in Global Panthers Soccer Night. They cheered the Laval Liberty Panthers who played a friendly match against the Maraudeurs from Collège Laval.

A ‘family’ event
“Family” was a theme the students themselves chose for the event. “The idea of Global Panthers is of students thinking beyond their environment,” said Andrew Walker, a Laval Liberty physical education teacher and soccer coach. “It’s about the school working together. Since the themes tonight are family and community, we’ll see examples of that. This really is an extension of the school — putting the school back into the community and the community back into the school.”

Learning support
Laval Liberty principal Eric Ruggi said the idea behind Global Panthers “is to bring all of our students from different backgrounds and ethnicities to come together for one big event and to celebrate the global game of soccer.” Support for those in moments of need is one of the lessons the Laval Liberty staff hope to get across to the students. As such, the organizers of this year’s soccer night invited the family of a Laval Liberty student, Giuliano Verrelli, whose father passed away from cancer last November, to come and share the burden of their grief with a second family, the Laval Liberty students and faculty.

---