CALGARY - Playing on the same field as the Calgary Stampeders didn't phase the Innisfail Cyclones in the team's ongoing quest to seek a fourth consecutive championship title.
Innisfail's Mountain View 9 Man Football Conference football squad went down to Calgary's McMahon Stadium on the Thanksgiving weekend, and treated the Sundre Bisons to a 44-0 loss. The Cyclones lined up against Sundre again this past weekend.
“It's kind of a treat,” said coach Trevor Wooff of the outing to the Calgary stadium. “There's a tradition of the peewee and bantam players going, but high school players hadn't had the chance to go for awhile.
“The kids all look forward to it,” he said, noting the nice facilities the team got to use. “There's a bunch of kids who haven't done it before and they thought it was neat.”
The Thanksgiving weekend game was a bit of a romp for the Cyclones, which Wooff had expected based on Sundre's scoring history this season.
“They're not a strong team,” he said. “We were pretty easily scoring on them. We only ran about 20 plays from the line of scrimmage, usually we run about 40 to 50 a game.”
Wooff said it's likely Innisfail and Sundre will have a third outing during the upcoming playoffs. The Cyclones are looking to be undefeated this season and are aiming for a fourth consecutive championship title.
Looking forward to the playoffs, Wooff said the big thing for the team is to not beat itself.
“At some point it will come to an end, somebody will beat us,” he said. But he wants the team to try and make it so the streak doesn't come to an end because of mistakes.
He said the group plays well together and for the most part the players understand the systems of offence and defence and how the coaches expect them to run the plays.
When mistakes are made, Wooff said, they address the issue right away.
“We don't let them keep making mistakes,” he said.
With Innisfail being such a strong team, the coaches want the players to make sure they don't get complacent.
“The main thing we're trying to work on is we don't want the boys to take it easy,” he said. There has only been a couple of tougher games this season, especially against the Didsbury team. Innisfail won that outing in the end thanks to better conditioning.
“I expect that to be quite different if we meet them in the playoffs,” he said. “Didsbury looks pretty strong.”
Trevor Wooff, head coach
"At some point it will come to an end, somebody will beat us."
