Target USA Cup kicks off during heat wave

Minnesota is known for its winter weather, but Mother Nature is bringing the heat at the Target USA USA Cup in Blaine this week. It is the largest youth soccer tournament in North America, drawing thousands of athletes from around the world. And Maury Glover joins us live tonight to talk about the steps that organizers have been taking to make sure that everybody stays safe. This is a lot of people and it's a warm week. Maury. That's right. This youth soccer tournament is in full swing. And even with the heat, visitors say it's still a cool place to be. It's super fun and I enjoyed a lot meeting new people. During her first game in the USA Cup, Brooklyn Eiding isn't just trying to defeat a team from Minneapolis. She and all her fellow athletes in the soccer field are also trying to beat the heat. It's so hot. It's super exhausting, but like it's good weather. Like I like it. It's a hot time of the year and you just got to deal with it. But you're out here playing the beautiful game. So it's always a good day to play soccer due to the extreme heat. Organizers shortened games by five minutes and added two minute water breaks to each half. They say they have 14 probes monitoring the temperature on the 55 fields of the National Sports Center. But they seem to have to deal with warm weather every year. It's not that unusual. This seems to be that week that heat finds us in Minnesota. So we've definitely had it over the past few years. This seems like it's going to be pretty pervasive throughout the week. So it's something to keep an eye on and manage it. But it's not just the 10,000 young athletes from around the world organizers are keeping an eye on. There are hundreds of volunteers and 35,000 spectators a day who have to find a way to keep cool. We've had a handful of athletes come into the clinic, you know, complaining about feeling a little woozy, feeling sick. We always take temperatures of these athletes. We've seen nothing elevated at this point. But it's reasonable to expect with 10,000 athletes, you're going to see a handful of people come in there with this. Eiding scored two goals in her tournament debut. And her team from Chicago has at least three more games in the scorching temps. But she's hoping they'll win the whole thing just for kicks. I'll be really excited because this is my first time here. Now shade is the key to keeping cool. I also saw a lot of umbrellas. But if you get a chance, come on up and check it out. They just finished their opening ceremonies and all the athletes were walking through the stadium right behind me, reminding me of the Olympics. So this tournament and celebrating soccer, which is all the buzz right now because the World Cup goes through Saturday. Yeah, it's fun to watch and it is like a miniature version of the World Cup right now. Thanks, Maury. Those kids are resilient and by the way, really good soccer.