It's a new year for the Simcoe County Rovers—one that features a new league name, new (ish) ownership, and belief.
Both the women and men begin their Ontario Premier League (OPL) season on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, away from home.
It will be the first season under the ownership of Barrie Soccer Club after the ownership group, including multiple Canadian national team stars, stepped back from the helm.
But while the name may be different on paper, there are still holdovers from the club's beginnings in 2021 with Will Devellis moving up as team president, and some of the other front office staff sticking around in smaller roles.
"It's just more off the field that's changed, but we don't see any huge changes as far as the way we operate or what our goals are," Devellis told Barrie360 at the team's kit reveal party. "We want to continue doing the same thing that we've been doing."
After 12 years as League1 Ontario, it was rebranded along with three other provincial third-division leagues, in an effort to further align with the top-flight Canadian Premier League (CPL).
"Aligning football in Canada right across the board, I think is a huge step forward for us as a country," Devellis says. "The rebrand and being very close to the Canadian Premier League, it makes sense... CPL coaches and clubs are scouting the Ontario Premier League all the time."
Devellis, a co-founder of the Rovers, who previously served as the team’s chief operating officer, also serves as the executive director of Barrie Soccer Club.
While the two entities had been closely linked before, the closer relationship actually makes things easier for operations.
"We've integrated both Barrie Soccer and Rovers, as far as all our social media marketing and stuff goes," he says. "It's just a bigger impact. Not just for the Rovers because the Barrie Soccer Club has a huge following of over 4,200 members, but I think bringing them together just gives us better outreach as well."
Devellis says it allows for Rovers players to help run youth camps, house leagues, and other technical programs during the season. Barrie Soccer Club coaches also have the opportunity to move up within the Rovers organization.
"They come in week in and week out to J.C. Massey Field and watching the players play," Devellis says about the youth players. "They aspire to be something, it gives them something to look up to."
The player pathway has always been there through Barrie Soccer Club, which gives each member a season ticket for the Rovers, but there is a new-found excitement given the upcoming 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by Canada.
Devellis says the club has planned a watch party in Barrie for Canada's first match of the World Cup against Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12, and he teased a dome construction project that could get started later this year.
"Although Barrie Soccer owns the club, we don't, by any means, look at the Rovers as just being our baby," he says. "It's really a community club for the entire region."
WOMEN
After a season that ended in League1 Ontario and League1 Canada Inter-Provincial championships, there is more belief than pressure for the Rovers' women's players.
With nearly the entire squad returning for this season, plus a couple key additions, they still feel like the underdogs.
"Starting from the bottom and having to rebuild the team altogether is obviously a big step," says defender Emily Tierney. "We definitely have added a lot of key players that will help us even further... the girls that have come in already fit and mesh really well with us, that we're not trying to rebuild or reset the 'mentality monster'-like mindset."
The club's top additions include former North Toronto stars Taliyah Walker, Ashley Campbell and Emma Warren, and U Sports first-team all-Canadian defender and OUA champion Hannah Chown.
Caitlin Crichton was also signed early in the offseason, but has since signed a professional contract with Ottawa Rapid of the Northern Super League (NSL).
Zack Wilson, who returns this year after leading the team in 2025 and winning League1 Ontario Coach of the Year, says the team enters the season humble, but confident.
"We have a lot of belief in them," he says. "Football is a game where you can't control everything... you never know what can happen. It's difficult, but it's something that we're not going to back down from. "
Throughout Wilson's tenure as head coach, the goal has always been to be the hardest team to play against in the league, and the squad believes in that.
"The game's not perfect, you're not going to make the perfect pass 100 per cent of the time, that's not what we're looking for," says Tierney. "It's about the fact that when you make the pass wrong, working your butt off to go help and having each other's back."
However, being the hardest team to play against might come with a harder season than anyone else in the OPL.
The team is expecting an announcement to come from Canada Soccer soon, outlining the format for a new Women's Canadian Championship, which the team would be in after the 2025 league title.
Currently, the CONCACAF W Champions Cup features the Inter-Provincial champion, meaning that under that format, the Rovers would enter next year due to the difference in league calendar. But since the founding of the NSL last year, the confederation is yet to carve out a way to include Canada's top-flight professional title-holder.
"The concept of upsetting the NSL teams," Tierney says when asked about what will make the season successful. "When it comes to CONCACAF, I think Canada always goes into it as a big underdog."
Nonetheless, enduring the extra games from a third competition is expected to be the most difficult part of the year.
Wilson says, in contrast from running the same lineups across all competitions last year, the prep for each game will be different to avoid fatigue.
"The squad rotation is going to be a lot different," he says. [There'll be] one week that our squad is going to be the squad that we would think on paper is the strongest, and then one week we won't be able to do it because we have to prep for other things."
"It's a challenge where you have opposition that are just worried about the league, they don't have to worry about these other competitions that they're in. But you know what? We never back away from a challenge. Like we said, we're mentality monsters. We'll figure it out."
Neither Canada Soccer nor CONCACAF has announced an additional club competition that would include the Rovers' women.
The squad begins their title defence against North Toronto on Saturday and have their first home match on May 9 against North Mississauga.
MEN
In the shadow of the women's team, the Rovers' men have aspirations of returning to the glory they experienced in 2023, when they won the League1 Ontario title, and later competed in the Canadian Championship.
Only two players from that championship squad remain: forward Shaun-Claud Lawson, and winger Feargod Ozomba.
Ozomba believes that comradery is the key to success for the men's squad.
"(If) we love each other, we unite together as a team—no conflict—I think that is what we had in 2023," he says. "If we have it this year, I think we can the league [again].
Under new head coach Randy Ribeiro, who comes over after leading Guelph United's women's squad, the team has already played, and lost, a match.
On April 9, the Rovers lost 3-2 on the road to 10-man Waterloo United in the first round of the OPL Cup, despite a 1-0 halftime lead. TJ Winstanley scored an equalizer in the 88th minute after the team fell behind 10 minutes earlier, but John Noubissi had the winner one minute after.
"What we learned from that game is we haven't been training that much," Ozomba says. "I feel like we need to work harder."
As with Ozomba, Devellis has belief in Ribeiro to lead the men to a strong season.
"Bringing somebody in like Randy to run the men's side and then also support the women's side has been an incredible coup for us," Devellis says.
A few of Ribeiro's players from Guelph United have followed him to Barrie, including Gianfranco Lopreiato and Luke Harrop. They also added attacking midfielder Jamie Nicholson, who starred at Cape Breton.
The Rovers' men open their league campaign on Saturday on the road against Burlington, and have their first home match of the year on April 25 against Sigma.
