The Notre Dame Cougars senior football team is back and hoping to take another run at the Central Alberta Football League title.
A year ago they fell to Hunting Hills in the league championship but with plenty of returners, the Cougars will field a very similar lineup.
They had so many players interested in playing football this season they created a second senior football team that will compete in several exhibition games to allow younger athletes playing time.
"We've got 63 kids registered, which has been great so we're actually going to run two teams this year at the high school level," said head coach Ian Rattan. "We'll have a six per-side junior team that's going to be made up of 22 athletes, in addition to our 12 per-side senior team that will be made up of the other 40 athletes."
Rattan explained this is a result of a search to find ways for their Grade 10 players to get more meaningful playing time. It was a suggestion made by the late former Cougars head coach Gino Castellan who passed away in April after a long battle with cancer.
Those players will suit up in four exhibition games with the Cougars while appearing in some senior 12-man games when needed.
"We wanted more numbers because we're in that new 5A super league ASAA has created. There's no more regional representation so we have to be ranked in the top eight in the province to get to a provincial game," he said.
"So we decided to try and do what Harry Ainlay or Notre Dame Calgary do, where they have two senior teams... We then get players in Grade 12 who have maybe played a couple of years and the nice thing about this too is we have a lot of athletes who generally quit after Grade 9 because they're playing hockey.
"We now have five kids who were originally playing hockey this fall who are now playing football... Ideally, we have 70 kids next year and can run 12 per side teams."
This year they'll have nine Grade 10s, 19 Grade 11s, and 12 Grade 12s on the senior team and are optimistic about their season. Rattan said they got lucky with not having too many students graduate, and are excited about fielding another veteran group.
"We're hoping to keep that going and retain every kid that plays Grade 8 and 9 football... We want to be competitive in every single game," he said.
"We want to get better every week and be fast and aggressive. As long as we're improving and get our kids to give their best effort on every single game, by the season's end as coaches we'll be happy. We've told the kids if they can buy into that they're going to have success."
The Cougars will face the H.J. Cody Lakers out of Sylvan Lake on Friday, Sept. 6 at Setters Place in Red Deer to open the season.
