CCIW

[Gotberg]

North Park's roster is posted - and it's a big roster:

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

[CentPA]

Wow - Gotberg thanks for posting on North Park!

Their roster went from 24 in 2025 to 36 this year but what is cool is they have 18 players from Sweden, 3 from Norway and 1 from Germany on the roster!

The men's team are showing 46 on their roster with 17 from Sweden!

It would be a challenge if you were the stadium announcer trying to pronounce all those names .. unless they bring a stadium announcer over from Sweden! 

[Gotberg]

Wow - Gotberg thanks for posting on North Park!

Their roster went from 24 in 2025 to 36 this year but what is cool is they have 18 players from Sweden, 3 from Norway and 1 from Germany on the roster!

The men's team are showing 46 on their roster with 17 from Sweden!

It would be a challenge if you were the stadium announcer trying to pronounce all those names .. unless they bring a stadium announcer over from Sweden! 

I'm not sure who does the PA Stadium Announcements, but our game day broadcast voice is Gregory Sager (Active on d3 boards) and he ensures pronunciations are correct - I'm sure the PA announcer does too.

North Park was founded by Swedish immigrants, so respecting our school's ancestry is critically important.  The respect extends to any other foreign born non-Swedish player on any team.

NPU really turned the corner last year and there has to be a feeling of confidence, this year will be even better.

[CentPA]

Wow - Gotberg thanks for posting on North Park!

Their roster went from 24 in 2025 to 36 this year but what is cool is they have 18 players from Sweden, 3 from Norway and 1 from Germany on the roster!

The men's team are showing 46 on their roster with 17 from Sweden!

It would be a challenge if you were the stadium announcer trying to pronounce all those names .. unless they bring a stadium announcer over from Sweden! 

I'm not sure who does the PA Stadium Announcements, but our game day broadcast voice is Gregory Sager (Active on d3 boards) and he ensures pronunciations are correct - I'm sure the PA announcer does too.

North Park was founded by Swedish immigrants, so respecting our school's ancestry is critically important.  The respect extends to any other foreign born non-Swedish player on any team.

NPU really turned the corner last year and there has to be a feeling of confidence, this year will be even better.

I wasn't aware of any of that information so thanks for sharing!  Really cool that so many Swedish students still come over for college!

[Gregory Sager]

I typically tell both the PA announcer and our color commentator how to pronounce the names. Pronouncing names properly is part of my job as a broadcaster.

I've been practicing the names of North Park's soccer newbies all summer. It's one thing to know how they're pronounced; it's another thing entirely to be able to get those names out of your mouth quickly, smoothly, and with clarity when you're calling play-by-play. I feel that it's especially important to get the names of the Norwegian and Swedish players right, because Scandinavia is seven hours ahead of the Central time zone -- which means that the friends and families of North Park's international soccer players are making the sacrifice of staying awake to watch 7:00 pm games at 2:00 am their time.

Having said that, the new recruit for the Vikings women's soccer team whose name I will most enjoy saying on the air is that of #32, Frieda Hüttinger, the freshman forward from Nuremburg. There's no vowel that's more fun to speak than the German ü.

[CentPA]

I typically tell both the PA announcer and our color commentator how to pronounce the names. Pronouncing names properly is part of my job as a broadcaster.

I've been practicing the names of North Park's soccer newbies all summer. It's one thing to know how they're pronounced; it's another thing entirely to be able to get those names out of your mouth quickly, smoothly, and with clarity when you're calling play-by-play. I feel that it's especially important to get the names of the Norwegian and Swedish players right, because Scandinavia is seven hours ahead of the Central time zone -- which means that the friends and families of North Park's international soccer players are making the sacrifice of staying awake to watch 7:00 pm games at 2:00 am their time.

Having said that, the new recruit for the Vikings women's soccer team whose name I will most enjoy saying on the air is that of #32, Frieda Hüttinger, the freshman forward from Nuremburg. There's no vowel that's more fun to speak than the German ü.

What a great post - feel like I got to peak behind the curtain - now I will need to watch/listen to a Vikings women's game if for no other reason than to hear how you pronounce #32! 

[Gregory Sager]

This should be an interesting season.

North Central has grown into a juggernaut in CCIW women's soccer of the sort that's unrivaled by anybody in this league since Wheaton was stomping each and every CCIW opponent year after year in the the late '90s. Last year the Cardinals outscored the rest of the league by the absurd margin of 26-3 in CCIW play, and then followed that up by outscoring Carthage and North Park by a combined 7-0 in the CCIW tourney. NCC has won two of the last three CCIW titles, each of the last three CCIW tournaments, and has racked up 27 wins the last 29 times it's played a CCIW opponent (one of those non-wins was the 1-1 draw with Carroll in the 2024 tourney championship game up in Waukesha that ended with NCC advancing to the title on PKs). Small wonder that the Cardinals are the unanimous pick to repeat in 2026, according to the coaches poll.

It's not as though the Cardinals earned that preseason pick on reputation alone. They return three of the league's four specialty-award winners from 2025: three-time-reigning CCIW Defensive Player of the Year Kassandra Salviola; CCIW Offensive Player of the Year (and All-American) Jordan Langs; and CCIW Goalkeeper of the Year Lily Mattison. Plus, they return three other All-CCIW players besides Salviola, Langs, and Mattison. On paper, it looks like the Cardinals are going to run circles around the rest of the league again in 2026, especially since last year's runner-up in both the regular season and the tournament, upstart North Park, wasn't really competitive at all against the Cardinals either time that the two teams played.

But Emma Woodley likes her squad this season. The Vikings return 2025 CCIW First-Year Player of the Year Sofia Svensson, who led the league in goals scored in CCIW play last season, as well as three other All-CCIW players among the seven returning starters for NPU. As CentPA noted, the Vikings have also added a bevy of Scandinavian recruits, two of whom are D2 transfers. The first question is: Can North Park manage to close the enormous gap that existed last year between them and the Cardinals, especially given what the Cardinals have returning? And the second question is: Can anybody else in this league besides NCC and NPU make some noise?

[CentPA]

I just looked at coach Woodley's bio and this year will be her 7th season of coaching but she just graduated from North Park in 2015!  She is so young to already be in her 7th season and now coming off the CCIW Coach Of The Year award there is certainly the potential/chance that she could have this team on the move up for the foreseeable future.  If things go well she could be coaching this team for quite a while.