Hilo’s popular miniBig Indoor Futsal Tournament returned to the Edith Kanakaole Multi-Purpose Stadium last Friday after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. The three-day tournament was a futsal-style soccer event using 5-on-5 “mini” player format and open to all youth affiliations state-wide in the following age groups U10, U12, U14 Boys and Girls.
Hosted by Hawaii Rush Big Island, the miniBig is a Hawaii Youth Soccer Association (HYSA) sanctioned event that started in 2003, geared to provide a great indoor soccer experience to further develop ball control, passing skills and teamwork.
This year a total of 46-futsal teams across the state competed in the 3-day round-robin play, with final rounds determined on Sunday.
Kula Oda, who is the assistant director of coaching for Hawaii Rush for the last three years and organized this year’s tournament schedule, said that everyone was glad to see the return of the 18th annual miniBig Indoor Futsal Tournament at the Edith Kanakaole Multi-Purpose Stadium. The last miniBig tournament was held in 2020.
“It’s awesome — the energy that’s in the building and just having the kids back out and playing is awesome,” Oda said while watching his son play. “We have 46-teams playing in this event, from U10 to U14. We have some outer island teams as well. We have two teams from Oahu, two teams from Kauai, one team from Maui, and the rest are from the Big Island. It feels really good to have all of the teams back and out again.”
Oda added that organization of the event is about a three-month planning process, but totally worth it as it is the club’s biggest fundraiser.
“We start two to three months before, then we have a committee that organizes the concession booths, we have people in charge of registration, with my main job being the scheduling and making it live on the website,” Oda said. “It’s a group effort with our admin team that takes two to three months. This is basically our biggest Rush fundraiser that we do for our season. It’s been going on for many years — almost 20.”
As for the miniBig name of the tournament that has to do with the size of the court, Oda explained, “we don’t really do the miniBig games anymore.”
“In the beginning, they used to play on the smaller court for the pool play rounds, and then they would open it up to a bigger, full-sized court for the playoffs and final rounds,” he said. “This (year) would be ‘mini’ as we don’t do the ‘big’ size anymore. For one, we have too many teams, and we don’t have enough time and space for it. We try to make sure that every team plays 4-games each and we are happy that we could do that.
“I think the kids have a good time — they all say they are glad to be back playing indoors again. I think they look forward to it every year so I think everyone is excited to be playing it again.”
Oda was right. The energy was electric and cheers from spectators thundered throughout the arena style stadium as teams played hard for a chance to be in the champion’s round on Sunday.
After the final rounds were played, the following teams won their respective age brackets: U10 Boys – Rush 2013 Boys Blue, U10 Girls – Rush Kauai, U12 Boys – Surf 2011 Boys Academy White, U12 Girls – Na Hoa O Puna 2011 Girls, U14 Boys – Hawaii Warriors, and U14 Girls – Rush 09 Girls Black.
About Futsal: Futsal is a soccer-based game played on a hard-court surface marked by lines, and mainly indoors. Futsal is played between two teams of five players each, one of whom is the goalkeeper. The game uses a slightly smaller and deadened ball than in regular soccer, and unlimited substitutions are permitted. Futsal helps to develop the skills of younger players as it stresses ball handling skills and control, precise passing, and teamwork which are critical components to becoming a great soccer player.
