2025 LOVE FOR LINLEY CUP

Wow- year 3! Biggest and best Love for Linley Cup yet! This will be a long post, but we’ve grown from 74 teams in our inaugural year, to 82 teams in 2024, to a whopping 130 teams this year, so there’s much to say!

This growth is not only a reflection of the immense Love for Linley our community and extended soccer family continue to have, but a true reflection of all the hard work our dedicated volunteers put in to making this a successful, memorable, and one-of-a-kind event that teams look forward to coming back to again and again.

Our collective goal to Show Cancer the Red Card is one felt by many, if not all, of the people involved one way or another in our memorial tournament. Cancer has touched too many of our Love for Linley Cup families and that only lights the fire in us to raise more, give more, and fund more research.

THANK YOU- so many thank yous! If you are reading this- thank you! Thanks to all the players, teams, coaches, families, and spectators who believe in our mission and help us improve each year. Special shout-out the following teams: Easton Eliminators (Thompson), Canton Arsenal (McCulley), Steve’s Lava Chickens (Daly/Lyons) and also an offer from Foxboro Warriors (Monahan) to play a bonus game when a team scratched at the last moment, leaving us scrambling. Your willingness to jump in and help is what this tournament is all about. Another shout-out to all the teams who entered our Team Donations fundraising- especially to Goal Diggers who topped the leaderboard raising $2,470.

Thanks to the best group of volunteers a nonprofit could ask for. Ones who work well past when their shift is over, are always helpful, pleasant, motivated, and are the backbone of this 5v5. Snack shack, score runners, horn blowers, photographers, set-up, clean-up, field liners, registration, scoring, and so many more- we appreciate your hard work. To Tyler Catania for the set of hands wherever it was needed most and John Hrenko and the Pohls for the extra efficient clean-up effort. To our volunteer nurse, Heather Cote and assistant Reese Blass, you are indispensable. Tilly Teravainen- you crushed the national anthem again this year! To the LFL lifers (our start to finish crew) who are at the fields at 6am to setup and stay for 12, 14, or even 16 hours- you are our heroes. We’re looking at you Powers and Magee families to name a few. Thank you. Thanks to our donors for supplying our snack shack goods, and Mal Cunha and Peter Landerholm for ice deliveries to keep drinks cold and players hydrated.

To our incredible volunteer referees- we absolutely could not do this without you. Everyone in the soccer world knows the climate of youth sports right now and that there is a huge referee shortage. We faced challenges finding referees too (volunteer ones at that) especially for our older U14-High School games. While we do our best with our limited resources, we’re always looking for more volunteers at this level. For our U12 and younger games, we had the most unbelievably dedicated and impressive crew of volunteer refs- kids and adults. When asked what age they wanted to ref or how many games, often times we’d hear “whatever you need” … amazing. We are so very grateful for you, often young players, from grade 5+ who donate your time and your soccer skills to referee our younger games.

And a friendly reminder for spectators who may have been disappointed in a call or lack thereof, please imagine your tween or teen out there doing their best, in the name of a little girl who always did her best too, and show kindness for their generosity and willingness to contribute. Our hope is for volunteer referees to have such a positive experience that they will want to help again, and tell friends to help too, because the Love for Linley Cup has the greatest coaches, parents, and spectators out there!

Thanks to those that helped me place teams in a wacky mix of birth year / mixed grade bracket system- you know who you are because I would text you at all hours of the day and night to try our best to place teams appropriately. Were there still some lopsided games? Yes, it’s a small 5v5 charity tournament with teams of every makeup imaginable, so it’s expected. For a large majority of the games though, we were able to schedule much closer match-ups and give teams more competitive games than in years past.

Thanks to our vendors that give back and our in-kind donors: Steve Marsh’s All Fired Up, Kona Ice of Taunton, Have a Bite, South Side Tees, WB Mason for waters, BostonbeaN for KCups, Pepsi for Gatorade, Select Sports America for our game balls, Royal Porta Johns for the clean purple potties, and Albert Basse Associates, Inc. for our banners.

We’d like to recognize our partnership with EYSA for the super generous donation of the lower field space and for helping find teams and referees and being so supportive of the event as a whole- we appreciate you and your never-ending Love for Linley. Thanks to OA grounds crew for timely mowing and help with logistics too.

To Michael Haikal and our partners at Elevate who helped with planning, volunteers, a generous donation, and brought a whole new level of competition to the Love for Linley Cup, our college men's bracket, thank you for all that you do.

Huge shout out to our incredible sponsors!

Platinum Sponsors: Teravainen Law, Halvorsen Orthodontics, G.A. Fleet Associates, LLEJ Equipment Inc, Landerholm Electric

Gold Sponsor: The Peach

Silver Sponsors: JED Insurance, Norton Physical Therapy, Kona Ica of Taunton, Folsom Family, JJ & KK Janiga, Inclusive Perspectives Counseling - Kristin Bowles, Playa Bowls Greater Boston

And last but not least, to my family- for encouraging me every step of the way, when I felt like the impossible needed to happen, for helping behind the scenes and on the day of, for believing we could do it… WE DID IT!

Thanks again everyone! You are keeping Linley's legacy alive and Showing Cancer the Red Card! We hope you’ll join us for our 4rd annual LFL Cup in 2026.

Much love, The Menard Family and Love for Linley Foundation

To all of you who took the time to send a nice note that you enjoyed your time, or that it was a well-run event, or that our volunteers are the best (they are), Thank you. Your kind words mean so much to us.