Featuring the Collection of Randy Rinaldo

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With the arrival of FIFA World Cup 2026 in Vancouver it is a time of reflection and awe.    During the summer months June and July, the City of Vancouver will be taken over with this athletic celebration. However, its impact will be felt most deeply in the Italian community. Like blood in our veins, the impact of soccer courses through the Italian community DNA indelibly shaping its culture. At the Italian Cultural Centre on May 28th  at 7 pm we unveil our exhibition Soccer Forever. This exhibition reveals that soccer isn’t just a game to the Italian community, but it is a way of life. The significance of the sport reverberates throughout the community culture and its daily rituals.  Whether it is collecting memorabilia which serves as tangible milestones of our lives, these objects are steeped with such significance that only saints’ relics can only rival their importance.   Not to mention the memories of the hours spent at Callister field after Sunday Mass.  Finally, the game evokes the presence of cousins, uncles, and friends, many who are no longer with us, but who played the game at esteemed levels in the East Vancouver Columbus soccer club.  The story of soccer in the Vancouver Italian community is not only about cultural connections to Italy, but it goes deeper. Soccer, was and continues to be, a guiding and substantial anchor to the past.  The game of soccer in this exhibition is celebrated as a unifying force of vital importance, one which enabled a strong immigrant community to effectively plant their Italian roots into Canadian soil, and this important chapter of our history was played out…on the soccer field.