Professional soccer comes to northeastern Ontario Apr. 20 with the first game for the Sudbury Cyclones and the new team is confident they can break even this first season. 

“There are pockets of people all around this community, we’re just fragmented,” said general manager Dayna Corelli.

“There is the support. I’m sure of it.”

The new team will play in the third division of Ontario League1, with home games at James Jerome Field and Cambrian College.

Corelli says she and Connor Vande Weghe, the new team’s sporting director, came up with the idea of a semi-pro team for Sudbury years ago, thinking about how they had nowhere to play after finishing their careers with the Laurentian University Voyageurs.

“We’ve always tried to dream bigger,” she said.

They sold the idea to Sudbury businessman Dario Zulich, who has now added soccer to his sports portfolio that includes the Sudbury Wolves junior hockey team, Sudbury Five professional basketball team and Sudbury Spartans football team.

Corelli says the Cyclones are basically a “northern Ontario all-star team” of university and college players from around the region, who won’t get paid a salary this first season, but will have their room and board covered.

“Our goal this year basically is to break even,” she said.

“How does that work? There’s a lot of moving parts. Game day sales is part of it. Obviously, fans. But our travel expenses are incredibly high.”

Corelli says she is excited to see Cyclones supporters already calling themselves “District 46” and is now starting to dream about bringing a pro women’s team to Sudbury. 

Sudbury previously had a semi-professional soccer team in the late 1970s, also called the Cyclones, that folded after a few seasons in the Canadian National League.

Walter Michelutti was just a teenager when he made the team along with some of Sudbury’s other top players, but they were little match for teams in southern Ontario and the U.S. who brought in professionals from Europe.

“We got a thrashing for the first couple of years,” he said, remembering playing in front of decent-sized crowds at Queen’s Athletic Field in the beginning. 

“It’s like anything else. If you win, people come out. And if you start getting beat bad, people stop coming.”

Michelutti says the original Cyclones travelled in a school bus that was frequently breaking down and were paid $25 for a loss, $50 for a tie and $100 for a win, which didn’t happen often.

The team, owned by local car dealer Wolfgang Mildenberger, folded after just a few seasons, but Michelutti is happy to see the Cyclones resurrected.

“I’m really happy for them,” he said. 

“I’m wishing them nothing but the best.”