The Creighton Kodiaks football team is getting ready to hit the gridiron once again.
The team will officially kick off training camp with practice on Aug. 22 at the field at Creighton Community School.
This year’s Kodiaks team will hit the field hoping to fill some big holes – literally and figuratively.
Offensive lineman Dimitri Morin and defensive lineman Brandon Knife-Nepitabo are gone from last year’s team, along with starting quarterback Bailey Eastman, starting running back Shawn Francois and receiver Linden Moore.
Head coach Ryan Karakochuk said the team hopes to recruit new players coming into high school. He mentioned the Northern Saskatchewan Football Jamboree, a premier northern football event held every May, was a solid way to introduce new players to the game.
“Our league has been good with the Jamboree. It allows us to take any new players back in May that we think might want to start football. They actually get an orientation of three days,” he said.
“It really helps, when they come to me for training camp. They already know the equipment and they get a sense of what football is like to a small degree. That really helps.”
The upcoming season will see some changes for the Saskatchewan High Schools Athletic Association (SHSAA) 2A six-a-side Conference 1, the league the Kodiaks play in.
Six teams will play this year, with each team playing each other once. Teams from Beauval, Pinehouse, Cumberland House and Sandy Bay will all rejoin the league, while the Senator Myles Venne Huskies from Air Ronge – who scored six points and gave up 278 last season – will drop out of the league.
Replacing the Huskies will be the La Loche Lakers, taking part in the league for the first time.
A trip between Creighton and La Loche would take more than 10 hours, which could cause issues with teams travelling to play the new team. To prevent a long road trip, La Loche will play some games at a neutral site in Prince Albert.
The Kodiaks will face the Lakers on Sept. 12.
“That’s the only way we could work it with them being so far away,” said Karakochuk, who said the longest trip of the year will be the team’s outing to Beauval for a game on Oct. 3.
“That is as far as I want to take my football team, as far as travelling in a bus, playing the game and then jumping back on the bus and coming home. We will try that this year, but Beauval came to us last year and played the game. They stayed overnight in the school. That’s as far as our league has determined we can go, that’s Beauval.”
With a number of new players ready to join the squad this year, the Kodiaks will hope to find skill in the incoming group. Karakochuk said there is a learning curve for players who start in Grade 9, but added that players don’t need to be fundamentally perfect the first time they step on the field.
“There’s no way around it. Players have to be introduced at more of a grassroots level and they play their way up. They’ve got four years to play, so they have lots of time. That’s the goal for us, to get as many young kids into the system as possible so they just keep getting better year-to-year. That’s how you make a strong program.”
