Across Manitoba, young men and women are getting ready to grab grass and growl as the 2018 minor football season gets set to kick off. Locally, the story is no different. A number of area kids are signed up and pumped up for another season.
One of those young stars is Ashton Heiland, who plays for the Eastman Raiders in Steinbach. He’s just beginning his second season of organized football and says it was a couple of trips to see the Blue Bombers that got him primed to play.
“When I went to my first game, I wasn’t that interested,” says Ashton. “But by the second game I was just hooked.”
This year Ashton will suit up for the Raiders Black team in the Manitoba Minor Football Association’s Cruncher Division, so named for its Old Dutch sponsorship and not the ferocity of the tackling. He counts amongst his teammates fellow Niverville kids Jerih Woligarski and Rylan Tye.
The Crunchers are eight and nine years old. From there, players move up to the Atom, Pee Wee, Bantam, and finally the Midget age groups for 16- and 17-year-old players. This year, the MMFA moved each age group up by one year to fall in line with national standards and address safety concerns some parents had about seven-year-olds playing tackle football. Recent years have seen a drop in registration numbers as the sport suffers a reputation for being unsafe.
But Ashton’s mom Keri has no problem with having her son in the sport. “First of all, at this age they don’t move fast enough to do any damage to each other,” she says. “And the coaches do such a good job of teaching the safer way to do things.”
Last year, in his first year of football, Ashton scored two touchdowns and even got an interception—though his dad Todd reports that after his son picked off an opposing pass, he looked to the sidelines for guidance from the old man before beginning the return.
Ashton and all young football players in the surrounding communities find themselves in a unique situation. They are essentially free agents at the beginning of their minor football careers. The Eastman Raiders catchment area ends just southeast of Niverville, leaving a large blank space on the MMFA boundary map before city teams like the St. Vital Mustangs pick up players. Ashton chose the Raiders because he liked the jersey his older neighbour Odin wore—but Odin is now a Mustang, as the Raiders and Mustangs have amalgamated at the Bantam age group.
As for Ashton, he has some big goals for his football career. “I want to go all the way to the CFL,” he proclaims. “And I want to play for Winnipeg.”
Does he have any advice for other kids out there considering taking up the sport? He has some encouraging words.
“You can do it,” he says before adding, “And I hope you do very well.”
