Oakville, ON – Blue Devils Announce Powerhouse Tech Staff for 2024
Blue Devils FC today announced their Head Coach positions for the 2024 League 1 Ontario season. The club will be competing in all three League 1 female divisions and are very excited to introduce their lead technical staff, that will be guiding the program into a new and challenging season ahead. The club is very proud to introduce 2 of the most experienced and qualified coaches within Canada.
Ladies L1 and L2 Head Coach – Natalie Bukovec.
A former semi professional player and member of the Croatian National team program, Natalie completes our senior technical staff. She is a former Blue Devils League 1 head coach and currently also hosts the position of Head Coach at the University of Metropolitan Toronto (former Ryerson). She also holds a Canadian ‘B’ License and along with Melissa, is a current National ‘A’ License candidate. Natalie too works within the Ontario Provincial projects and she is also working towards her Masters in coaching and sports performance. She is a high performance role model for all our aspiring young female prospects. (Reserve team tryout information at www.bluedevils.ca )
Ladies L1 and L2 Assistant Coach – Pat Thomson.
StFX University Soccer Assistant Coach and Head of Scouting and Recruiting, Pat Thomson, joins the Blue Devils FC League 1 Ontario coaching staff for the 2024 season.
Thomson joined the StFX University (Antigonish, Nova Scotia) coaching staff in 2020 as a part-time assistant coach in charge of advance scouting and analytics. By 2022 Coach Thomson advanced to a full-time assistant coach overseeing talent identification, scouting, and recruiting for both the nationally ranked X-Women and X-Men. Thomson’s role has developed and is now Assistant Coach and Head of Scouting and Recruiting.
Since joining the StFX coaching staff, the two StFX teams have qualified for three of a possible six U SPORTS national tournaments. In the 2023 season, the X-Women went a perfect 12-0-0 before capturing the AUS title having scored 48 goals and conceding only three in the regular season, while the X-Men won the AUS title for the first time in 29 years. Thomson is proud to work with StFX Head Coach Graham Kennedy who was named the 2023 U SPORTS Women’s Soccer Coach of the Year and 2023 AUS Men’s Soccer Coach of the Year.
Prior to coaching at StFX, Thomson was a successful boy’s high school coach for Dr. JH Gillis in Antigonish for 6 years. Thomson is active in the development of both youth and adult soccer at the club level having coached with the Antigonish Celtics Soccer Association since 2005 (details posted at www.Bluedevils.ca )
