MEDICINE HAT, AB – When school returns next week, students will be back on the football field.
SD76 fall camps are scheduled to kick off on Tuesday for the Vikings and Mohawks.
The McCoy Colts camp will start the following week.
It’s an opportunity to bring some normalcy to the new school year.
Games against opposing schools won’t be happening for the first several weeks.
But there is hope that could change if the camps go well says Vikings head coach Sean Davis.
“And I’d like to be the league that kind of sets it up for the rest of Alberta in terms of here’s what we did, here are some of the things we had success with or didn’t have success with, and some tips moving forward to try and get football back full scale in Alberta,” Davis said.
Despite provincials being cancelled this year, Quinn Skelton head coach of the Mohawks hopes they can set up inter-squad scrimmages each week.
“If our numbers stay solid, our area has done very well with it, hopefully, we can get a little more leeway and get to cohort with red and blue and maybe get some inter-squad that way and we can compete with the boys across the river and I think that will make everyone really happy,” Skelton said.
Meantime, the puck will drop for the South Alberta Hockey Academy within the Prairie Rose School Division on Monday.
The program’s general manager Darren MacMillan says they’ll be following public health guidelines and wearing masks in close quarters.
“Otherwise, everything else is really following the school protocols. Our hockey academy and high-performance skills academy are basically just treated like any other class. It’s like being in math class or physed.”
The academy is offered at 6 different schools in the region.
MacMillan says the male and female U-18 prep games are set to begin by mid-October.
Teams would then travel outside school hours the following month.
“We can start playing possibly an exhibition series against one other team until right around the beginning of November where we can get into pods and play either in groups of 3 or 5 and travel and play each other,” he added.
The COVID-19 public health guidelines might look different by November, but for now, the kids are just excited to get back onto the ice and field this fall.
“I think just in general, emotional wellness and getting back to some normal life for these kids going back to school and having football to look forward to after school and I think it’s just going to be huge for everybody,” Skelton said.
He adds the local teams are working with school divisions and other programs so they can make the best of this year for young athletes.
