I knew we had a football team but I didn't know it lost almost every game

Maybe a new coach will help

November 22, 2022

Apologies, I don’t know why this didn’t send this morning. It’s short!

Yesterday, I got a news release from the Prince George Kodiaks who, if you didn’t know, is a Canadian Junior Football team who just played their first-ever season. Canadian Junior Football, the internet tells me, is a league where some players can move directly into the CFL while others move into university leagues. Here is what it said:

One and nine, by the way, is not a very good record! It means the team finished last in the league and did not get very many points.

Not that it matters. It was the team’s first year so I imagine there’s lots of building to be done.

What I’m curious about is who they will get to replace “Coach Keon.” Keon Raymond is a two-time Grey Cup champion so it was quite the coup to have him head up the club in its first year.

Anyways, back when I was a boy, we didn’t even have football in this city. Teenagers who wanted to hit each other on a field had to play rugby but a few years after I left high school teams started up and the sport took off to the point where we now have a just-below-pro level team here that recruits Grey Cup champions to be their coach and, as far as I can tell, gets big turnouts to all their games. I’m not sure how that happened.

Here’s what else is going on:

  • Days after it opened, the Prince George Ice Oval is closed, serving as a reminder of why they want funding for a refrigeration system (in 2015, the Canada Winter Games had to host speedskating events in Fort St. John for exactly this reason);