North Battleford's Lee Kormish has gone from writing about minor soccer events to covering FIFA World Cups. (supplied photo/Lee Kormish)

By Keaton Brown

FIFA FAN

North Battleford man in France for FIFA Women’s World Cup

Jun 13, 2019 | 5:04 PM

A man from North Battleford is in France to cover the FIFA Women`s World Cup.

Lee Kormish grew up in North Battleford and moved to Saskatoon to work as a freelance writer for the Star Phoenix. After a few years of writing for the paper, Canada Soccer asked him to cover a few national tournaments and the Canada Games.

From there he was approached by Richard Scott, the director of communications at Canada Soccer, who offered him media credentials for FIFA. That led to Lee heading over to Russia last year to cover the men`s FIFA World Cup.

He was there for 35 days, visited all 10 cities and covered 21 games throughout the tournament.

Following that tournament he applied to have his credentials extended to the women`s tournament this year in France.

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“I applied for the Women`s World Cup, not expecting to go, but if I had media then I would come here and I got word a couple months ago that I was approved so I booked my flight” Kormish said.

He arrived in France in time for Canada’s first game of the tournament against Cameroon on Monday in Montpellier. From there he will head to Grenoble for the Canada versus New Zealand match and then wrap up his coverage in Paris.

The Canadian women’s team is poised to do better at this tournament than they have in the past. The last game against Cameroon was the first time the Canadian women’s team has won a match on European soil.

The Canadian team has some big game experience on their roster after they finished with a bronze medal at the 2016 summer Olympics in Brazil.

“Team Canada has possibly the best defence in the world right now,” Kormish explained. “They need to find a way to score some goals, but you know defense does win championships. If they aren’t conceding they could go right to the semi finals and you never know what can happen at that point” he added.

Kormish said he is very proud to be representing both the Battlefords and Saskatchewan at such an important international event.

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keaton.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow