INNISFAIL – The Innisfail Cyclones 9-man high school football team won’t be repeating as Mountain View Conference champions this season.
In fact, there won’t even be a regular season this fall for the squad that has won its league championship five years in a row from 2014 to 2018.
“(The season) doesn’t exist. We don’t have a 9-man league to play in per se, so we’re playing exhibition games against teams that are giving us a shot to play exhibition,” said Trevor Wooff, the team's head coach, who is still optimistic competitive football and a league will be re-established next season.
Football Alberta is bringing in several changes to minor football, starting next season, noted Wooff; changes that will affect roster size and the number of players required to play.
“I thought there’d be more teams that would be interested in doing 9-man (football) this year at the high school level, but the mandate for a minimum roster size doesn’t come in until next fall,” explained Wooff. “So teams that can’t put a roster of 30 bodies on the field will immediately go to a 9-man format or be forced to play 9-man (football) anyways,” he added, noting the changes are targeting player safety.
“For safety reasons, if you want to play 12-man (football), they’re saying you should have a minimum number of dressed players per game,” he said. “To play 12-man I think they’re saying it’s 30, it could be 35.
“We would never be able to make that number so that’s why we switched to 9-man years ago because it’s a better fit for us,” said Wooff.
In the meantime, high school football players are playing exhibition games and holding regular practices.
“(We’re practising) three days a week. It’s really just trying to keep these kids interested for the year and then hopefully next year we have more teams and have an actual league to play in,” said Wooff. “So we’re not losing a year of time or shutting down.”
For more on this story read the Oct. 1 print edition of the Innisfail Province.
