One of the best feelings playing for Vancouver FC is when they announce my name at Willoughby Stadium and say I'm from Maple Ridge.
After games, too, talking to the fans, when they realize I'm a local player, you can see that proud feeling in their face and it gives me that feeling as well.
Maple Ridge is my home and throughout my entire career I'm always going to be representing that community, and the Lower Mainland.
This is an intense time in the season with difficult league fixtures back-to-back and we have the second leg of the Canadian Championship semifinal on Sept. 18 to look forward to and prepare for also.
There's a chance to make history, which is exciting, but it's a busy schedule.
I find myself doing the drive between 91原创 and Maple Ridge about 10 times a week at the moment, between trainings, matches, team meetings, and physio appointments.
The drive can be a lot sometimes, especially after a hard session if there's traffic.
So just getting home, getting outdoors and going to a lake or river to decompress, it's one of the great things I really like about Maple Ridge.
I live with my family in the Cottonwood neighbourhood, so I鈥檒l often go for walks around there, or go to Alouette Lake for a swim, or stop by the Alouette River, which is just nearby. I also like spending time at Whonnock Lake or Rolley Lake.
Lately I've been enjoying going out to Cliff Falls with my brother. There's a bunch of different trails, and the water is definitely really, really cold 鈥� which is great for recovery. And on the trails you get to see the waterfalls, which I find pretty cool.
When I was younger, we did a lot of bike riding. But in general Maple Ridge has a lot of outdoor space and natural beauty and it's a great place to grow up in and live.
Soccer is obviously a huge part of my life, so I also spent a lot of time playing there.
Soccer is definitely growing here and through the years they've added more and more turf fields, which has been great. So almost everyone now living in the city has a field nearby where they can walk to and play, which definitely helps grow the culture of soccer. Walking by or driving by the field and seeing people or kids playing is a great feeling.
Ridge Meadows now has a BCSPL program as well, which also shows the growth in the game in our community and is good news too for VFC.
Within walking distance of my house is Golden Ears, and Telosky at Thomas Haney. So growing up if my dad was busy, then I would just take a ball, call some of my friends to come play or train, and we would walk over there.
I also played for several years with Albion FC and we had a rivalry with another local youth club, West Coast, which was fun at the time and definitely competitive.
We travelled to Scotland in 2017 with the team and watched a bunch of games over there and saw how big the rivalry was between clubs in the one city. So after that our coach would try and build it up in the same way and hype us up, which looking back was funny, but definitely at the time on the field it almost felt that big.
I went to high school in Maple Ridge Secondary, which unfortunately didn't have a soccer program. But we had some really good players there, boys and girls. We had some competitive games at lunchtime and it was fun coming back in all muddy. The teachers weren't that happy, but we just loved playing the game.
Some of those people are still some of my best friends. And now just going around the city running my errands or whatnot I bump into people who I've played with, or their parents, or some old coaches who might have watched some of our games. Many of the people I grew up with and around are now coming out to our Vancouver FC matches to support us, so it's great to have that special connection, and to see the young kids supporting us.
That's something that is also very important to the club, having young players from the Lower Mainland get their opportunity to progress through from local soccer to the professional game and hopefully then to the next step 鈥� all in one Canadian system, too, which is important especially now when we are on the world stage with the World Cup.
We moved from Coquitlam to Maple Ridge when I was eight, after my youngest sister was born we needed a bigger space. Back then it felt like you needed your passport to make that trip. But 10 years later, it's definitely home and I'm proud to represent it for Vancouver FC.
鈥� Taryck Jordan Tahid, 18, is a Maple Ridge local playing midfield for Vancouver FC soccer team, who is writing a regular column through to the end of the season. In 2023 he became the youngest player to sign and appear in a CPL match at 16, and then the youngest goal-scorer in league history. He played for Canada in the U17 World Cup, and has since represented Ghana in the U20 African Cup of Nations. Watch for his weekly feature online.
