Halifax Wanderers Take You to Dreamland (Maybe) | Easygoing Company for a Quiet Evening

In Halifax Wanderers Take You to Dreamland (Maybe), Marco welcomes guest James Covey for a gently curious journey to Halifax. What begins as a playful geography lesson — imagining the city shaped like a shoe — unfolds into a relaxed exploration of coastal charm, local landmarks, and the easy rhythm of life in the Maritimes. James guides Marco through the story behind the city’s beloved soccer club, the Halifax Wanderers FC, sharing how the team’s name carries history and community pride.
The conversation drifts into reflections on “the beautiful game,” with Marco offering a soft-spoken appreciation for soccer’s simple, equalizing spirit. For listeners new to the sport, James shares a few gentle tips on how to watch a match without overthinking it — perfect for those late-night games that blur into background comfort.
As always, this calming podcast unfolds at an unhurried pace, offering a relaxing conversation designed to help you fall asleep, ease anxiety, or quiet racing thoughts. Whether you’re dreaming of Atlantic breezes or simply enjoying steady companionship, let this easy exchange guide you peacefully toward rest.

​Halifax Wanderers Take You to Dreamland (Maybe)
(Original airdate: July 10, 2024)


James Covey is a longtime listener and first time guest on Insomnia Project

Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation that's meant to help you find your way to sleep. I'm your host, Marco Dimpano, and joining me is a guest I've been hoping to have in the studio. I'm so glad to have, our guest today. Join us. Welcome James Covey to the Insomnia Project. How are you doing?

James Covey:  I'm really happy to be here. You know, longtime listener, first time guest.

Marco: So great.

James Covey:  Yeah, so pretty, pretty pleased to be here. Thanks so much.

Marco: And you're here in our Toronto studio, but you live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, so I'm so glad to have you.

James Covey:  I do have been on the Dartmouth side of the Halifax harbor for a good 20 years now. Something like that.

Marco: 24 years. What's the difference between the Dartmouth side and the Halifax side? So it's not Halifax, but you're a pinch away. Right. you're not even a suburb, you're that close.

James Covey:  It's a one mile bridge. And it's a deep psychological divide. This is a weird thing about haligonian culture is. I mean, I grew up on the mainland off the peninsula, so opposite side from Dartmouth. Okay, and what do you mean?

Marco: So you, you grew up in Halifax?

James Covey:  Grew up in, in Halifax, but not on the peninsula. So people don't think of it as Halifax property. Okay. No, I'm from Spry Field.

Marco: All right, so I'm gonna just have to unpack that. First of all, for our international listeners, a Haligonian is someone from Halifax. Halifax is shaped like a what?

James Covey:  Kind of like a shoe?

Marco: Like a shoe. And the peninsula is what a lot of Haligonians consider Halifax proper. Yeah, but you grew up on the lace side or where you tie up the laces.

James Covey:  Yeah, yeah. Across that inlet, that goes along the top of the laces there is called the Northwest Arm.

Marco: The Northwest Arm. So would that be newer Halifax to older Halifax and Halifax being an old city.

James Covey:  Yeah. At one point the boot shaped peninsula or shoe shaped peninsula was the extent of Halifax and everything else was kind of considered a suburb. The then just like many cities, amalgamation, et cetera, et cetera. So the community of Spryfield on the mainland, not on the peninsula that I, that I grew up in.

Marco: I see. Yeah.

James Covey:  That was kind of its own thing. And now it's part of Halifax.

Marco: Wow. Okay, this makes a lot of sense because I hear Becca, who is my sister in law, your partner, talk about the peninsula a lot. And it would just go over my head and I'm like, oh, now it makes sense. So now is Dartmouth facing the, toe of the shoe, the heel, the backside of the shoe? Where does Dartmouth face in this shoe equation?

James Covey:  Yeah, it's. It's facing the sole of the shoes.

Marco: Okay. The sole of the shoe. I didn't think it was. The shoe was pointing upwards or the toe is pointing upwards. But that makes. Or in my Mind now it is.


You take the ferry or the bridge to get back and forth from Dartmouth

Okay, so Dartmouth, it's a city across from Halifax. You can see Halifax. You take the ferry or the bridge to get back and forth. Correct. What do you take? Usually?

James Covey:  I typically, if I, well, typically take the bridge, because even if I'm riding my bike, because I like to cycle over sometimes, there's only one of the two bridges, has a, bicycle path.

Marco: I see.

James Covey:  so that's a common route for me. however, the ferries are also very accommodating to bicycles.

Marco: When would you, as a person from Dartmouth and how are you referred to if a, haligonian is some from Halifax, Someone from Dartmouth is Dartmouthian. Okay, so when would you, a Dartmouthian, love that expression? I feel, it almost feels Shakespearean to me. when would you, a Dartmouthian, take the ferry over? If your first choice is predominantly the bridge, when do you take the ferry?

James Covey:  Sometimes it's when I'm coming over, to watch a game, you know, like on a match day, you know, maybe I'm going to have a beer or two at the game. I'm definitely not going to drive, back. So I might, you know, walk down to the ferry or Uber or bus down to the ferry and then cross on the ferry just because it's a nice thing to do. I mean, it's a $3 tour of Halifax Harbor.

Marco: Right. Beautiful tour.


The Halifax Wanderers play in the Canadian Premier League

Okay, so you mentioned game. What game are you going to see when you, a, ah, Dartmouthian is taking the Halifax ferry to Halifax to enjoy a beer with likely a haligonian or two.

James Covey:  So I like to go watch the Halifax Wanderers, which is our, local professional soccer team playing in Canada's top tier league, the Canadian Premier League.

Marco: Okay, and tell me about the Wanderers. What I need to know is their colors and what exactly a wanderer is. Is it like a Bedouin who wanders the desert? I don't know why that would be a Halifax, team name, but I'm

James Covey:  curious, I mean, if you're ready

Marco: to dig in on this podcast is all about digging in.

James Covey:  Okay, so let's dig in. Let's go on this journey. so early in the history of association football, also known as soccer, in England in kind of the mid to late 1800s when, football began to be more organized and associations were formed, there was, it was very common at the time for teams to be formed, clubs to be formed and not have a permanent home or stadium.

Marco: So not like the Manchester that we know, or Liverpool, big, English, British soccer teams that have A stadium and a following wouldn't be like that.

James Covey:  Yeah, they might have a following, but

Marco: not a proper stadium.

James Covey:  Yeah, exactly. So they might play at different locations, and that's where the wandering comes in.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  Yeah. And so you will see, a lot of teams in soccer called Wanderers or Rovers and, Rangers, and these are all variations on the same thing. We don't have a stadium or permanent. A permanent place that we play the

Marco: Halifax we're talking about right now.

James Covey:  Well, so we'll get to that.

Marco: Okay, sorry. So this is the teams in the past, they didn't have a problem. Okay, sorry. All right.

James Covey:  Yeah, that's right. But what happened when the sport got more organized in the 1860s and 70s, is that the. The Football association cup was created and the FA cup became the championship of England.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  And something like five of the first seven FA cup tournaments, I believe, were won by Wanderers Football Club.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  And so what happened there?

Marco: And Wanderers would be what city?

James Covey:  You know what? I don't even remember at this moment where they started out. I should know this.

Marco: No, fair enough.

James Covey:  but, yeah, they were just called Wanderers fc. And so because they had this ongoing success, the name began to be, associated with just sporting supremacy. Sporting success. And so you began to see new clubs that were formed that would call themselves Wanderers or Rovers, even if they had a permanent place to play, just because that was a cool thing to call yourself because it meant this is a team that wins. Wow. And so you go from the 1870s to 1882, and in Halifax, Nova Scotia, what was a refuse heap in the center of the city was transformed into an athletic field.

Marco: Okay. Was, ah, it put on top of the refuse. So the refuse is underneath what currently would be this area of.

James Covey:  I think that, like, some stuff got hauled away. Like, it was a significant project.

Marco: Okay. this is in 1882.

James Covey:  1882. And so, this was. This was turned into a really, like, premium, ah, surface. Like, it was definitely the. The best such location in the Maritimes. and what was formed then was the Wanderers Amateur athletic club in 1882. and so that was the beginning of the site in Halifax that's known as the Wanderer's Grounds.

Marco: Wow. Oh, that's fascinating. I didn't realize the history of that was so long ago. Because the team that you root for

James Covey:  now was formed when, so launched in 2018. And then both the club and the Canadian Premier League, played its first season in 2019. so we're one of the founding clubs of The National League.

Marco: And are they playing currently where the refuse used to be? That was made into Correct.

James Covey:  Wanderer's Grounds.

Marco: Wanderers grounds. Wow. That's a fascinating little history of, of. Of that whole thing. Thank you for sharing that, James. It's actually put a lot of things kind of right in my head with regards to these names and whatnot. So what is it about the Wanderers, other than you being from the area? Unless there's a Dartmouth team that I don't know of, that you love, that makes you a big fan?

James Covey:  I think what I usually cite first when people ask me that is I just. From a very young age, I really loved watching the sport. I mean, I never played it in an organized way, but, like pick up games at recess time at school or whatever. Played it when I was, you know, 6, 7, 8 years old and on. But really when I was 12, I started to watch international soccer tournaments. I was really, really into it. And, ultimately I got to the point where I really wished that there was like, a professional club in Halifax so I could go see like, the, the professionals play. And.

Marco: So who's. Whose team were you rooting for back then when. When Halifax didn't have a team?

James Covey:  so I really ended up following two teams, like, kind of with a, With a nod to my, my. The Italian side of my birth family and so forth. Like, I got really interested in Serie A and Italy, so I started following Roma. and then in terms of like, North American clubs, really the closest one was, at the time, Montreal Impact. Now CF Montreal.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  And, started following, following them. And yeah, I think I just, like Montreal really vibes with me. I mean, growing up, I also liked watching baseball and I was an exposure.

Marco: You were an Expos fan.

James Covey:  Okay. So it just all kind of came together like that.


For a long time, Halifax didn't have a professional hockey team

So I would say I didn't follow the team very closely because obviously that's a. For those who don't know, Montreal is a good 14 hour drive from Halifax. So it's not like you just pick up and go to a game. so you got to plan that.

Marco: That takes some planning.

James Covey:  Yeah. But this is why, you know, for a long time I just thought, you know, someday I'll move to a bigger city like Montreal or Toronto, and there will be a professional team and then I can go to games all the time. Wow.

Marco: Okay. Yeah, that's really fascinating.


The Wanderers have really reinvented their playing style under new coach

All right, so tell me about the Wanderers play. Do they have a distinct style of playing? What do they do that really, you admire or esteem? What is it that. That team that you're like, you know, what's really cool about our team is blank.

James Covey:  Well, the. I think the Wanderers have really reinvented their playing style in the last two years. They brought in a new head coach. His name is Patrice Geyser. And before he coached the Wander. The Wanderers are his first fully professional club. I see before that he coached pretty much the most successful semi pro team in Canada, Vaughan at Surrey Vaughan soccer club.

Marco: And P.S. i grew up in Vaughan.

James Covey:  There you go.

Marco: In case anybody's wondering what my connection

James Covey:  is to this coach. So, yeah, Vaughan really repeatedly smashed the league like they would win pretty much every game of every season. And so Patrice was in a good place to make the jump to pro, when the opportunity came. And what we've seen under him is a more attacking style, a more flexible style with, roles more flexibly defined. We see a lot of like, really good, passing, ball movement. so it's a really exciting style to watch. it's been very entertaining the last two seasons.

Marco: What is associated with that particular style? Is that more of a European style or more of a Brazilian style?

James Covey:  I would say that really, you know, at one, at one time, you know, national styles were very distinct.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  But it's a fully globalized sport, fully global game. And so, really, it's kind of very common now to. When anytime a new coach comes into any team pretty much in the world, it's like, oh, we want to be more exciting. Presumably there's dissatisfaction with whatever came before. but, yeah, I mean, some, some inspiration. There's a few lines of inspiration that run into, the club. You know, one of the assistant coaches has written a book on how to coach. Oh, that's great. Spanish tiki taka style of keeping the ball on the floor, lots of passes, moving the ball around. Possession football, as opposed to. The two main styles are really possession football, where the way to control the game is by having as much of the ball as possible versus the counter attacking style, where you have less, of the ball, but you try to control the game by controlling space.

Marco: Oh, wow.

James Covey:  and I would, I would say that Patrice's style is a bit of a hybrid. they're not setting records for the most passes. but there is more passing than we used to have, if you see what I mean. So, yeah.

Marco: One of the great things about soccer or football, depending on what you like to call it, is that it is a great equalizer because it's just a ball.

James Covey:  Yes.

Marco: So people all over the world, it doesn't matter what finances you have, you know, how old you are, what space you have, you know, it's you. A few friends and a ball can play this game. Sure, if you have a field, even better. but it doesn't require more than that. And I think that's one of the great things about this particular sport and why we see it played all over the world. Unlike other sports, hockey, which you need, generally speaking, you need a more cooler climate where ice is formed. you know, American football requires a lot of equipment, as does baseball, and it requires a set of rules. Cricket too requires, you know, requires more than just you, friends and a ball.

James Covey:  M.

Marco: I think that's wonderful about it.

James Covey:  It's such a democratizing, you know, type, type of quality. And honestly, I think you're dead on. I think that's why the sport is so universal. It's just, it's very simple to set up and play.

Marco: When I was in Brazil, I was in Sao Paulo, and I was, I was struck because in my hotel, as I turned the channel on the remote, every other channel was some form of soccer in Brazil. And not just the big league teams. You could see, you know, high school kids play, you could see college kids play. You could see just a variety of skill levels and levels in the competition of soccer was available to you. It was incredible. Like old black and white games with Pele and like just, it was just fascinating how much it's part of, Brazilian culture that it was that available on the television.

James Covey:  Yeah, yeah, no, that's I love experiencing things like that when I travel, you know, because it's, it's a sport that's so important to me. So when you end up spending time in a place where it's important to everyone, it just feels so relatable. And you know, when it happens to me, I feel very at home.

Marco: Wow. Yeah, it was at least 25 channels of soccer. It was quite incredible.

James Covey:  I have kind of a similar memory of, when I spent, six weeks in Syria. Syria is also a country with a very deep soccer culture. And I can remember wandering around the souks and downtown streets in Aleppo at night, and every TV in every stall would have a game on, whether it was the Syrian Premier League or one of the European leagues. Just screens everywhere showing soccer.

Marco: I remember I was in Italy in 82, I believe, when the World cup was happening, I want to say in 86 was Mexico.

James Covey:  Right.

Marco: So 82 was in Germany. I'm not sure.

James Covey:  82 was in Spain.

Marco: In Spain, that's right. It was in Spain. And I remember being in Italy at my aunt's house, and I was just a young kid, but during the time that Italy played, you heard nothing on the streets. You heard nothing. It was like very, very quiet. Like, there were no cars. It was really, really quiet until a goal was scored. And then, because my aunt lives on top of a valley in the Alps, you could hear the sounds of people cheering from their homes and in bars from all around. You could just kind of hear it and see where the sound was coming from to her home, which was higher up. And it was like, oh, it's quiet. Because every single person in this town, in the neighboring towns, is not out there watching this game. It's incredible.

James Covey:  That is an amazing memory.


Marco Di Quinzios says his dad was a big soccer fan

M Now, Marco, when you were growing up, I don't know if I've ever asked you this, did your family have kind of a club that they supported? Was there any kind of unanimity on that?

Marco: That's a great question. So, my dad was a big soccer fan. And as a kid he said, you know, one of the first joys was when I had a boy, I put a soccer in front of him to see. I was excited that maybe my son would be a soccer player. And he said, the first thing I did was look at the ball. And I turned around and sat down with my back to the ball. So I was like, okay, clearly I don't have a soc soccer player here. But later in life, my dad would just watch Italian Serie A soccer. And I don't know if he had a team, he just loved watching it. But I m remember as a kid in particular, the World Cup m was a big thing. And of course he went for the Azzuri, which is the Italian national team, was his team. And just watching him watch the game was a lot of fun. So I get into the, the World cup, games. That's when I'm really into soccer. Otherwise I don't pay it much mind. And, then later on, as I got older, he would watch the WEFA Cups and all these other cups, and he would be really involved in it. And, soccer on Saturdays and Sundays was always on the television. And I saw an Inter Milan game, Inter Fiorentina in Milan, many years ago. And getting to watch a football or soccer game amongst people in a stadium where soccer is a big thing is such a fun experience, especially in a. In a. In a different land, just to see how other people react. It was, it was an incredible experience.

James Covey:  Yeah. Yeah. I think it's very. I mean, I think way more people watch the international games than watch club games. So the, it's like the international tournaments are the ones that really bring people together. And then partly because, you know, everyone in a country is supporting the same side.

Marco: Right.

James Covey:  so that, that makes a whole lot of sense to me. I don't think there was in my birth father's family, they, they were from Penne. And like, the closest big Ish club was Piscata.

Marco: Yeah, that makes sense.

James Covey:  but as like, you know, farmers in the countryside, like, it would have been a big effort to even get into the city to go see a game or whatever. So they never really formed that kind of club attachment. So now, you know, here in Canada, it was all about, you know, those who wanted to follow a club. There was no one club to follow. Like, I know people in my, in my family that follow Juventus, that follow and that sort of thing. I think I'm the only Roma fan among the Di Quinzios.

Marco: If you ever go to a concert in Rome, you'll see a lot of the people going to the concert will hold up Roma, Roma scarves and Roma flags. At a concert for, an artist who is. Is not a tifos or a fan of Rome or might not even be from Italy, they'll just have these. Rome. They just carry these Rome. I think it's like orange and brownish kind of colors, if I'm not mistaken. Right.

James Covey:  Yeah, they're the Jello Roth sea.

Marco: Okay. So.

James Covey:  Yeah. Kind of yellow and red.

Marco: Okay. Yellow and red. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so you just see, you see a lot of that in Rome. I'm always fascinated by, by that too. Right. Like the Wanderers. One of the things I love about the Wanderers is your colors are so awesome. Like, I just, I love the coloration of the. Of the Wanderers team.

James Covey:  I really love the combination of the, the dark blue and the more teal blue. And then the, the third color in the equation is, so called naval gray, which is such a nice accent. And then of course, you do stir in, like, white elements with kits because, you know, there's white versions of everything.

Marco: Yeah. I didn't like the kit that Italy had this year in the competition, which was this dark green. It didn't make quite sense to me.

James Covey:  Yeah, it's funny that, that, Italy's, you know, Italy's national team looks wrong when they're wearing like, a color that's on the national flag.

Marco: It's just, yeah, it's just odd because they're known as the azzuri, which is azure blue or azure blue. Blue. That's their color and that's the color of all the sports, national sports teams. So if you're an Italian cyclist, it's going to be that color blue. It's just the color of Italy sport, I guess. So it's just interesting when you see a color that's like, I, I don't, I don't get it. Now that you mentioned it's on the flag, I'm like, yeah, I guess so. But yeah, one last thing about soccer. If there was a listener listening who hasn't watched a soccer game, what tips would you give them when they watch their first soccer game? Because soccer can be, you know, a challenging sport to watch if you don't understand it like offside. A lot of people don't quite understand that concept or that, that it's not a very high scoring game necessarily.

James Covey:  I mean there are different routes to understanding soccer depending on what kind of sport you're coming from. As a, as a favorite, if you already have a favorite. I mean, I think for those who like gridiron football, you know, one thing to think about is, well, a major score is about as common in soccer as it is in gridiron football.

Marco: Okay.

James Covey:  Like if you look at I don't know what gridiron football is, so that's like the NFL or the CFL. It's like a catch all term for American and Canadian 80s versions of football. And yeah, like in that, in those sports, especially in like the NFL, if you just think of it in terms of if a touchdown is like a goal and don't think about all the like the little points that you get for like field goals and stuff like that, it's about the same number of major scores in both kind of football and soccer. so if you start thinking about it that way, like what are the big like tent pole moments in a match? Well, a goal is a thing that's hard to do. Scoring is the hardest thing in soccer. So when they score a goal, it's a big deal. so really, if you really appreciate, I think if you're watching soccer long enough, you begin to appreciate all the little battles that lead up to the major score.


James: Give soccer a chance because it has a slower build and involvement

And that stuff isn't necessarily evident the first time you're watching. so I would say just give it a chance because the more you feel the rhythm of the game and how things build up to a goal, the more it begins to feel like a story and less like a bunch of boring random elements. And when you compare it to sports where scoring is more frequent, like let's say hockey, I can remember going back and watching a nice hockey game for the first time in a long time after watching soccer for years and it just seemed so random to me. There's not as much effort, you know, to score a goal. There's not as much strategy, there aren't as many tactics. and you know, I love the fun high energy of ice hockey.

Marco: Sure.

James Covey:  but, soccer has that more like slow build and involvement and it doesn't ask you to pause and watch commercials.

Marco: I see. There you go. That's awesome. I, I'll say this, I'll add this. If you are watching soccer and it comes to penalty kicks at the end, it's a very, very nail biting, exciting moment in that sport.

James Covey:  Yeah. And there's, I know it's a common thing to say that it's kind of a lottery, but there actually is a whole lot of strategy and analytics now in the game that goes into how penalty, shootouts are handled. a fun thing that often people don't really realize is, a penalty shootout never decides the winner of a game. When a game is not decided by a goal in regular time or extra time, it's recorded as a draw.

Marco: I didn't know that.

James Covey:  That's right. So the point of a penalty shootout is just to decide either a final winner of a tournament or to decide who advances to the next round of the tournament.

Marco: I did not know that. Thank you, James. Well, we'll have to have you back on the podcast to explain offside because I mentioned it and I think that would take 26 minutes at least to fully comprehend what that means.

James Covey:  The Brits minted a coin just to, explain it in one picture.

Marco: Ok.

James Covey:  So we can talk about that coin. It's a fun story.

Marco: Fantastic. So stay tuned for that listeners.


James Covey: It's fun to talk about my favorite sport

Until then, I want to thank our guest, James Covey. Thank you for all the information as well.

James Covey:  Oh, you bet. It's fun to talk about my favorite sport. So I really appreciate you having me on.

Marco: Oh, so great. I love hearing, when people talk about their passion and what a great episode this was. I hope you were able to, follow along and maybe fall asleep and if not, please send us a message on our Instagram what you thought about this show or anything, anything that delights you on our podcast. We always love receiving that. Until next time, we hope you are able to listen and sleep.