We’ve been thinking about starting a women’s soccer team in Portland since 2018. For a long time, it was an idea without a clear path to reality. I’ve felt that same transition with Hearts, watching it go from an idea to a conversation to something this community can see, interact with and belong to. On Thursday night, Maine Wildness made that same leap.
I can’t count the number of times these last few days I’ve stopped and thought: this is so friggin’ cool.
To stand in a room full of people wearing Maine Wildness gear, seeing the crest we created together out in the world and hearing people say the name out loud… I’ve been trying to give myself a minute to take it all in.
If you can’t tell, we move fast around here. There’s always another match, another opportunity to show up for this community, another way to use soccer for good. But as Ferris Bueller would say, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Unveiling Wildness on Thursday night reminded me that this Club has grown far beyond any one of us. Among the hundreds packed into Live at Madrid’s were longtime Hearts supporters and people just beginning to find their place in what we’re building. This women’s team extends our dinner table, inviting more of our community to join in. If you want to be a part of it, you already are.
Arriving at this moment started with conversation. Since the start of the year, we’ve been asking people across Maine what they wanted this women’s team to represent, and how it could feel connected to Hearts while having its own identity and reason for being.
We found inspiration in the resilience and spirit of Maine women, the trailblazers who came before us, and a few literary giants who helped us arrive at our “aha moment.”
“Wildness is a necessity,” wrote Muir.
“We need the tonic of wildness,” wrote Thoreau following his time in the North Maine Woods.
“To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from,” wrote Terry Tempest Williams.
Aha. That was it. Wildness, not wilderness. A word that speaks to Maine’s expansive landscape and the spirit of those who call it home.
What made the unveiling especially meaningful was seeing how many women have helped build this from the inside out, both on our staff and throughout the community. This team isn’t being created for women from a distance. Women have been at the table shaping what it should stand for and what kind of place it can become.
There has been this incredible appetite for the women’s game in Maine that, for a long time, has just been waiting for somewhere to go.
In the span of a few weeks, we’ve welcomed two legends of American soccer, Michelle Akers and Landon Donovan, into this community. Both have spent time with us, seen what we’re building and understood why it feels different here. Hearing them speak about the support, ambition and sense of purpose behind this Club has been pretty damn special.
More and more, it feels like people across American soccer are turning their attention toward Maine and asking what’s happening up here. Five thousand people put down season ticket deposits before they knew the team’s name, coach or roster. Now, season tickets for our first year are sold out before the team has ever kicked a ball.
That says a lot about what people believe this team can become, and it raises the bar for all of us. What an absolute privilege to be a steward of all this.
This Thursday’s celebration also came at the end of a season that has asked a lot of us. There have been brutal stretches on the field, games we felt we deserved more from, and moments that got away from us. We’ve had to come back to work, reset and believe the next opportunity would be different.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about resilience and how much I want it to become part of this Club’s DNA. I believe that even more now. Resilience isn’t just about taking a hit and getting back up. It’s about honestly assessing what needs to improve, making the changes and doing the work that comes next. There’s no value in wallowing in what didn’t go our way. Our responsibility is to learn, improve and keep moving forward.
Over the course of this year, we’ve professionalized in a lot of ways. Some of that is visible and some of it isn’t, but it all matters. The right people, structure, resources and support must be in place if we expect to keep raising the standard.
Now we get one more night together at Fitzy.
At the start of the year, the season feels endless. Then the air gets that familiar bite, the nights get darker earlier, and suddenly there’s only one more time this particular group gets to walk out in front of this crowd.
I hope we enjoy it. I hope we make it loud and sing until we can’t anymore. I hope the players feel what they’ve felt all year when they look into the stands: Maine is with them. For some, this may be their last time taking the pitch at Fort Fitzy. Despite a difficult season, I’m grateful for everything they’ve contributed. They’ll always be part of the Hearts family.
When the season is over, I hope we can hold two things at once. We can be honest about where we need to get better while looking around at what continues to grow here and feeling an awful lot of pride.
Next year, there will be two teams carrying the Dirigo Heart. New players, new stories and new people walking into Fitzy for the first time. Thousands of people coming to see Maine Wildness play its first season. Kids in the stands seeing something that simply didn’t exist here before.
There will be hard days, too. That comes with building anything meaningful.
But the thing about Maine is that we know how to keep at it. We put our heads down. We do the work. We take care of each other. And we get up the next day and do it again. Together. That feels like a pretty good way to build a soccer club.
See you at Fitzy.
Gabe Hoffman-Johnson
