Halifax, Nova Scotia
Friday, September 4, 2026
14° · Fog lifting · Wind SW 18 km/h
Vol. 12 · No. 36 · Newsstand $3.50
Sport
SubscribeSport · Wanderers Grounds
Athletics club signs three academy graduates before the August window
Sam Ori, Leah Cormier and Malik Jensen trained with the seniors through a wet spring. Sporting director Evan Moss wanted a dressing room that already knows the press and the city. Homegrown papers, not a raid on another CPL roster.
Halifax —
Halifax Athletics locked in three academy graduates on first-team deals ahead of the August window — the club’s largest homegrown haul since 2019, when the senior side still shared a dressing room with a university program and the pitch at Wanderers Grounds flooded if you looked at it wrong.
Midfielder Sam Ori, 19, of Spryfield; winger Leah Cormier, 18, of Dartmouth; and centre-back Malik Jensen, 20, of north-end Halifax, all trained with the senior group through spring. Ori has 11 senior minutes already, all from the bench in May. Cormier scored twice for the U21s against Valley United last Wednesday. Jensen has been the organiser in a back three that the academy coach, Pauline Dube, calls “stubborn on purpose.”
Sporting director Evan Moss said the signings are as much about the room as the minutes. “We needed players who already know the press, the wind off the Common, and which lane the festival trucks steal on a Wednesday,” he said, standing on the Ahern side of the grounds while a parks loader reversed toward the rebuilt Common stage. The club did not get a written load-in window when the festival grounds reopened. They got a phone number. Moss has it saved as “Parks — ask twice.”
We needed players who already know the press, the wind off the Common, and which lane the festival trucks steal on a Wednesday.
Evan Moss, sporting director, Halifax Athletics
Terms were not disclosed. Homegrown first-team deals at this level typically run two years with a club option, and sit well below the senior floor that the Canadian Premier League sides post. Athletics are not a CPL club. They play in a regional senior league, feed players toward HFX Wanderers when the timing is honest, and run an academy that still charges $1,450 a year after bursaries. Moss said all three contracts include a clause that Wanderers get first look if a CPL side calls. Wanderers’ technical staff were at Tuesday’s session. They did not comment.
Who they are on the pitch
Ori is a six who does not dive into tackles he cannot win. He came through the Spryfield community club, then the Athletics U15s, and kept a part-time job at the Sobeys on Herring Cove Road until the senior call-ups made the evening shifts impossible. Cormier played high school at Dartmouth High, turned down a U Sports offer from Saint Mary’s in June, and told this paper she wanted “minutes against adults before another year of the same gym.” Jensen’s family moved from Toronto in 2018. He has started every academy match this season that was not a red-card suspension — one, in April, for a tackle Dube called “late and honest.”
The senior side sits third in the table with five matches left. A playoff place is not yet math. Moss said the three will be in the match-day 18 this Saturday at Wanderers Grounds, 2 p.m., against a Moncton side that parks a bus and waits for set pieces. Admission is $12, $6 for under-18s, cash or tap at the Ahern gate. The club still prints a one-sheet program. Colm Burke will be in the press folding chair that lists to port.
The ground, the Common, the city
Wanderers Grounds is a municipal pitch with a historic name and a drainage problem that is better than it was in 2019 and worse than a private stadium. When the Common festival grounds flooded in 2024, Athletics inherited every outdoor booking that could fit. When the Common reopens this weekend, the shared lane off Ahern goes back to being a fight. Parks will not reroute festival trucks onto Robie. The academy’s Wednesday sessions already start late when a loader is in the way.
Moss did not pretend the three signings solve a sporting problem the club has had for a decade: senior minutes for women have been thinner than the academy’s production. Cormier’s deal is a first-team paper, not a development cameo. Dube said that distinction “is the whole point of running an academy in this city instead of sending kids to Ontario at 16.”
Ori still takes the 14 bus to the grounds. Cormier comes over on the ferry when the 9:40 exists and on the bridge when it does not. Jensen walks from Gottingen. None of that is in the press release. It is why Moss wanted them. A CPL side can buy a winger from Ontario. It cannot buy a centre-back who already knows which way the wind comes off the Common in September.
Match-day eighteen this Saturday is not a promise of minutes. Moss said all three will be in the squad. Dube said Cormier should start if the wind holds. That is an academy coach talking, not the senior sheet. We will file the lineup from the Ahern gate, not from the release. Programs still cost a dollar if they print enough.
Signings: Sam Ori, 19, Spryfield; Leah Cormier, 18, Dartmouth; Malik Jensen, 20, north end. Largest homegrown haul since 2019. Academy fee: $1,450 a year after bursaries. Saturday: 2 p.m., Wanderers Grounds, vs Moncton. Admission $12, $6 under-18, cash or tap at Ahern. U21s beat Valley 2-0, Cormier both goals. Wanderers drew 1-1 with York United. Shared Ahern lane with Common festival load-in; no written window. CPL first-look clause is in the contracts.
HFX Wanderers, who drew 1-1 with York United last Saturday at the same grounds, remain the professional shop. Athletics remain the civic one. The three graduates will find out, quickly, whether a first-team deal in Halifax is a career or a season. Saturday is 2 p.m. The wind, if it stays southwesterly, will be in the visitors' faces in the first half. Jensen will like that.