POULSBO — Organizing 135 teams, 2,000 young soccer players and making happy the approximately 2,500 parents who will watch the youngsters in next weekend’s annual Viking Cup is quite the challenge for this year’s director, Cam Corey.

“It’s like doing a huge jigsaw puzzle,” said Corey, who is directing the massive tournament for the first time, though he’s volunteered in the event since 1988. “You don’t know what it’s going to look like until it’s done. A lot of times you feel like you’re fitting square pegs into round holes.”

Nonetheless, the tremendous planning that goes into it, Corey said, is all worthwhile because of what he called a certain “energy,” that envelopes the event, held May 27-30 this year.

“It’s what keeps me coming back,” he commented. “There’s more of a feeling of a circus atmosphere. It is that energy. It makes all the other stuff (of planning) worthwhile.”

Now in its 21st year, the Cup brings to town teams from places as far away as Lake Oswego, Ore. to Pasco. Corey commented that its success brings in thousands of dollars to the North Kitsap Soccer Club as well as to the local economy, due to all of the traveling families who play, eat and sleep here.

“The tournament is a fantastic event for North Kitsap and Kitsap County,” Corey said. “If it’s not the biggest, it’s one of the biggest in the county.”

Corey, a member of the Kitsap Peninsula Referee’s Association, has been the chief referee assigner at the tournament for the past eight years. Right now, tournament planning, he said, is in “crunch time.”

“No matter how much you plan, it all comes down to the last three weeks,” he said. “It’s an incredible amount of work but once the tournament starts, there’s so much energy.”

The Poulsbo tournament was founded by soccer legends Tim and Maxine Burns in 1984. Back then, it was a rarity of its kind, whereas now, there’s three tournaments just like it in the Pacific Northwest the very same weekend.

“The competition to get teams now is really tough but the tournament is still alive,” Corey said. “We have an unbelievable group of volunteers, a good group of people who’ve helped it for years.”

Proceeds of the tournament go for field improvements in North Kitsap as well as summer camp funding.

The tournament will be played on fields at North Kitsap High School, Poulsbo Junior High School, Strawberry Field, Kingston Junior High School and Wolfle Elementary School.

Corey said he encourages anyone in the community, soccer fan or not, to come out and witness the annual tournament.

“See that energy, smell the fresh cut grass, you just have to go up there and experience it,” he commented. “There’s this electricity. You’ve got kids that are so excited about playing — yes, they want to win, but they really just enjoy the tournament.”

For those who are soccer aficionados, Corey remarked the tournament is a must. Where else can you get a myriad of fields playing games from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for four days, he questioned.

“The tournament is such a positive thing for the community,” Corey said. “It gives the kids a chance to play and soccer nuts like me an opportunity to hang around for a soccer tourney all weekend.”