Yesterday morning my wife took off to Vancouver (about 1200km away) to help out a friend. She's supposed to be back tomorrow night - which is good, 'cause I'm leaving for Fort McMurray (about 1000kms away) for a week on Monday morning. Guess we'll literally be saying hello as we pass each other in the doorway. Yuck.
Anyway, today I had both of my football boys playing games. First up at 12 noon was Brady. He's in Pee Wee, and it's great to see him learning something that he really loves. I hope he continues to love sports. I suspect that next year he's gonna be tearing it up on a roadbike. Anyway, he played well, his team played well, and they came away with a tie. They learned a whole bunch. He made some great tackles in the second half that made me wonder how a little body like his can take that kind of impact. He bounces right back up, but if he doesn't get a little bigger he's gonna have to find something else.
Next up was Khan. They were playing Raymond. Arch rivals. Now you have to understand something about football in this part of the world. While Football here is nothing like football in Texas, it's treated about as strong. Both Cardston and Raymond are communities of 3500 - and the schools are little schools. Both high schools play in the 4A league (in Canada 4A is the biggest, single A the smallest) so they play against schools with as many as 2000 students. Raymond has won provincials so many times that I've lost count - I remember 3 years straight while we lived there a few years ago.
Anyway, this is Bantam age kids (Jr. High) In the Southern Alberta League, coming into this game, neither Cardston or Raymond had lost a game - and neither team had had a point scored against them yet. (They really dominate down here - it's sad they don't have more competition.) Anyway, we usually play one game during the season, and then usually meet in the league championships - and the winner goes onto the provincial finals.
This year we have a home and home series (today and next Sat.) My boy was excited for the game - and I knew it would be a hard fought learning experience for him. Game ended up 15 - 8 for Raymond, they scored a touchdown with 1:07 left on the clock on a great flee-flicker play from their own 35. Just one of those things (I won't go into how a rookie referee missed a clipping call right in front of him 'cuase he had his back turned to the play running for the end-zone...)
This year the Bantam league will be taking two teams from our league to the provincial playoffs. That means we could potentially play Raymond 4 times - twice during league play, once during league playoffs, and then possibly again in the provincial final. Wow, wouldn't that be something!
Anyway, getting pictures showing my boy in action is tough, as he was always buried in red shirts (every play he was double-teamed, occassionaly triple teamed. he still managed to get his share of tackles, plus two fumble recoveries.) Here's a pic of my boy - #62 - after having come all the way around and about to lay the big one on #20.
Here's another of him being triple-teamed (he made the tackle on this one, too.)
So, by the time I was finished with football I had just one chance left to ride, as Steve had made arrangements to do a 75km tailwinds ride into Lethbridge - but with me having the kids here... well, no riding for me today. But the football was great fun!
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