The interview starts out as expected, the subject insightful, well-spoken, portraying a clear sense of comfort with his surroundings - just as one might expect from a 28 year-old full-time accountant who had recently been named as Ontario League1 Championship Division Goalkeeper of the Year.

Then Connor Vande Weghe unleashes his other side (said the writer, tongue at least partially planted in cheek).

“I definitely think that there is a layer to me, underneath, that has a time and a place to come out,” said Vande Weghe, the former Laurentian Voyageurs’ goalie who posted a record of 7-1-7, including five shutouts with the Sudbury Cyclones, helping to earn his team a promotion to the Premier Division in 2026.

“A ball goes up ten feet in the air in the middle of the box and there are five players between me and the ball. Well, I’m sorry for the five guys that are between me and the ball. It’s just not going to be their day.”

What helps to make the 6’5” standout so successful, however, is the manner in which he offsets the ability to recognize that “there are simply times when I have no choice but to get the ball” with a far more calm, cerebral approach to the game.

“I don’t think you want to play 90 minutes aggressively, screaming and yelling,” said Vande Weghe, an OUA all-star and team MVP during his time at Laurentian. “There is a piece to it where you want to play calm, when you want your teammates to feel confident.”

“There’s a lot that you can notice about the game, about your opponents, about your teammates if you just look for it,” Vande Weghe continued. “But in order to look for it, you need to stay a little bit grounded. That’s where I think that I am able to find that balance.”

His insight for the game goes far beyond simply a very extensive array of match experience, dating back to his competitive start with the Sudbury Athletic Soccer Club and the subsequent launch of the GSSC (Greater Sudbury Soccer Club) Impact the following year. His interest in coaching, a pursuit that he followed in the years after moving on from L.U. to the workforce is an incredible ally given his particular role on the pitch.

“I would like to think, this past summer, that opposing coaches might see me as something of a defensive coach who is standing on the field,” said Vande Weghe. “When they look at our team with me at the back, what they are seeing is a really well organized team that is hard to beat. In a perfect world, I am always a little bit ahead of them in calling a shift, in calling a player to close down some space.”

To some extent, this is the end product when one truly commits to understanding their craft.

A gifted shot-blocker, almost from the get-go, Vande Weghe caught a break midway through high-school. Well acquainted with the local talent, Laurentian coaches Carlo Castrechino and Rob Gallo ensured that the rising star garnered an introduction to the level of his post-secondary soccer play, inviting Vande Weghe frequently to attend Voyageur practices.

“I remember going out and watching the keepers crushing goal kicks down the field and realizing that I had to get a lot stronger,” said Vande Weghe with a laugh, noting that his roughly 6’2” frame at that time might have included perhaps 150 pounds of weight or so.

“I had some work to do,” he recalled.

There was so much for Vande Weghe to draw upon, including the fact that in his earliest of competitive days, he and teammate Nick Walker actually rotated starts in net, allowing the other to avail themselves to many other positions of interest.

“The best way to learn how a position is played is to play it yourself,” said Vande Weghe. “You can adapt to your teammates and figure out how you can better help them as a keeper.”

For Connor Vande Weghe, part of the answer to that question lies very much in understanding all of his various strengths and character traits, even those that seem to lie at polar opposite ends of a spectrum.

“I think controlled emotion is exactly the right term for it,” he stated. “The emotion is always there, even as you walk out for warmup, as you walk out before the game begins. Your emotions are elevated.”

There are times when the emotions of a soccer keeper are fully obvious to all those attending the game – and other times when those same emotions are kept very much in check.

Walking that fine line in between is very much the beauty of Connor Vande Weghe, Ontario League1 Goalkeeper of the Year.