By Pearl Josephine Nazare and Philip O'Connor
VANCOUVER, June 16 (Reuters) - On East Hastings Street, where Vancouver's soccer heart has quietly beaten for almost half a century, Ferruccio Susin is witnessing a lifelong dream unfold - a World Cup on Canadian soil - from behind the counter of the store that has grown alongside the game.
Susin, an Italian-born immigrant who arrived in Canada aged 10, incorporated North America Sports in 1976 as a ski-boot business. After back-to-back snowless winters
crippled sales, he pivoted to soccer gear in 1978.
He moved to East Hastings after spotting Vancouver Whitecaps fans queuing outside what was then the club's ticket office - a gamble that paid off as the late-1970s North American Soccer League (NASL) boom took hold.
When the Whitecaps relocated to Gastown in 1983, Susin took over their former premises, where his store still operates.
Nearly 50 years on, with Canada co-hosting the World Cup with the U.S. and Mexico, the shop stands as both a witness to and a beneficiary of soccer's steady growth in Vancouver.
Soccer is Canada's fastest-growing sport, particularly among the youth, with nearly a million registered players nationwide in a country where fans traditionally favour ice hockey, American and Canadian football, basketball and baseball.
"It's wonderful. It's a dream come true," Susin told Reuters of the tournament coming to Canada.
Inside, the walls are lined with club and international shirts - from Lionel Messi's Argentina to Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal and clubs including Real Madrid, Liverpool, Benfica and Flamengo - alongside balls, boots and training gear.
DIVERSE IMMIGRANT ROOTS
The store has served generations of players and fans seeking connections to clubs and countries back home, reflecting Vancouver's diverse immigrant roots.
"Soccer has been played in Vancouver since the early 50s ... The immigrants that came were good soccer players. Therefore, they built soccer in Vancouver. It's always been a hub," Susin said.
"We have Vancouver or the greater Vancouver - it's a mixture of immigrants, and they like their roots. They keep their tradition. So we try to cater to that and they want you to cater to that."
Susin once explored expanding the business, opening partner stores in Surrey, Edmonton and Toronto, but ultimately chose to remain rooted in one location.
"We thought that we would expand, but if you expand, you become a manager and you're not involved in soccer. My passion is soccer - dealing with boots and shirts, dealing with people. So we maintain one location," he added.
Asked about the legacy of the World Cup for his store and Canadian soccer, Susin replied: "I hope that it'll be a long-range planning.
"For soccer, our store will be better known, more recognised by many more people that are coming through. I have to say that there's soccer players and then there's people that love soccer ...
"Therefore, those people that are with the World Cup coming now have sort of raised their attention about it. So they become more enthused about it and hopefully they remain soccer fans for life."
(Reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Vancouver and Philip O'Connor; Additional reporting by Mohammed Benmansour, Editing by Ken Ferris)
