Toronto based Northern Lights player Renee Tong has found a novel way to help raise so money to compete in next year’s International Cup: A contest where the winner is awarded $10,000 towards their athletic dream.

The competition is being run by Canadian wellbeing and supplements company Genuine Health. Each entrant writes about their athletic dream and the $10,000 prize is awarded to the athlete with the highest number of votes. The competition ends on August 31st.

Renee hopes that with help from the international football community she will win the competition and be able to travel to Australia to compete in the International Cup. As well as travel and accommodation costs for Australia, also hopes to use the money to travel across Canada to national competitions so she can gain more experience and become a more competitive player. The prize money will also cover the training, nutrition and physio programme she has set to lead up to IC14.

If you would like to help Tong achieve her dream of playing for her country, please click here to vote for her and read her story here.

More information about Tong’s aspirations and her Australian Football journey so far can be found in this article in local newspaper Inside Toronto.

Melbourne based women’s football club VU St Albans Spurs have announced that they will undertake an international tour in 2014. For next year’s end of season trip, the team will head to America to play against local teams, including the New York Lady Magpies, the Boston Lady Demons and the Baltimore/Washington Lady Eagles.

The club will be the first senior women’s team in Australia to play in an international setting. By doing this, they hope to further challenge the boundaries of women’s football in their own country, as well as help promote and develop the women’s game overseas.

American Eric Wallace is a chance to step up to the North Ballarat VFL senior team this weekend. Wallace has been named on an extended ten man bench for Sunday's clash against the Collingwood VFL team.

Wallace showed good form last week against Coburg (see video below) and with 10 games under his belt in the development league this would be a huge step up in his monumental climb to one day play in the AFL.

Some of Wallace's countrymen attended training with North Melbourne yesterday as crew from the USS Lassen learnt about Australian football from the North Melbourne players.

Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph has reported that the Sydney Swans have signed Patrick Mitchell, one of the three athletes to come out of the AFL's US combine earlier this year.

The three athletes trialled at the Swans and in front of other AFL clubs in June. Swans' head of recruiting told the Telegraph "The other two were impressive as well, but we felt the thing with Patrick was he was going to give it absolutely 100 per cent."

Beatson's opinion on whether he would make an AFL footballer "Is there a guarantee Patrick is going to make it? No, there's not. But we're going to give him a go and provide him with the resources to give him a realistic chance of making it."

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This weekend's international match in Edmonton between Canada's Northwind and the US Revolution will be streamed live.

The event will be be broadcast live from 10:00am on Youtube @ http://www.youtube.com/edmausfc with streaming commentary and video of the games.

Broadcast Schedule

10:00 am MDT (GMT-6hrs) 
Canada's Northern Lights versus USA Liberty 
 (Women's Development match)

12:00pm MDT (GMT-6hrs)
Canada's Northwind versus USA Revolution 
(Men's Development match)

2:00pm MDT (GMT-6hrs)
Canada's Northern Lights versus USA Freedom
(Women's Championship match)

4:00pm MDT (GMT-6hrs)
Canada's Northwind versus USA Revolution
(Men's Championship match)

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This weekend international Australian football in north America will be highlighted as Canada and the United States compete in the 49th Parallel Cup on Canadian soil in Edmonton.

The Canadian national team, the Northwind, has been working hard since January for this game. The coaching staff feel they have one of their best teams, one which has been built around a group of players working hard to become solid unit. There is a belief amongst the squad that they can beat any team they face

Over the past year the Canadian team has been focusing on improving their skill sets and football knowledge, key areas in which Canadian national coach, Benjamin Roberts, believes will make this one of Canada’s most competitive teams.