CLHS Royals football team practicing on

Despite an irregular season, the Cold Lake Royals will be active and scrimmaging this year with the hope that the situation could allow for a few games here and there.

“We have no games planned just yet, but we’ve got our fingers crossed that maybe by the end of September we’ll be at stage three and can have a few exhibitions,” said Royals coach, Kelly Johnson.

“For now we’re treating this like a spring camp, we are trying to recruit some new kids and do an introduction to football.”

The Royals season began in earnest in the last week of August and will run through to November 28th. At this time only in-school practices will be permitted.

Unique to this year is the lifting of registration deadlines. Cold Lake High School students interested in participating in the football program are able to join in at any time during the season.

There will be a requirement for coaches to review COVID-19 procedures with athletes before and after practice. Students will be restricted to joining only one sports program.

“Things are a little bit complicated, but kids are trainable,” said Johnson on the situation.

Johnson said he’s hoping things will start to get back to normal by the 2021 season.

“We really want some action in the spring and to get our league all ready to go. I don’t know if we’ll have provincials but having some league games, and also giving these Grade 12 kids a proper send off,” said Johnson.

“Some kids have been playing ball now for around six, seven years and it just really sucks having your grad year thrown away. So we’re really hoping to get some league action in the spring.”

To register for the football program visit www.coldlakeminorfootball.com, and any questions for coach Johnson should be sent to his email at kelly.johnson@nlsd.ab.ca