As they gear up for a new season, Penta Completions Estevan Minor Football will be without one of its teams this fall.
The organization will not be fielding a peewee team, due to low registration. That means EMF will only have the bantam Steelers and atom Miners this season.
Minor football president Steve McLellan said he isn't sure why the numbers for the peewee Chargers dropped.
"We'd love to know the reason ourselves, but it does appear to be cyclical. We have pretty strong numbers above, really strong numbers below," said McLellan, who has coached the Chargers the last few years.
"I think with the spotlight on concussions these days, there's a generation gap there maybe. We gotta focus on keeping the kids we've got and keeping them for next year."
Although the pool of players at the atom level continues to grow, McLellan said it wasn't feasible to use atom players to help form a peewee team.
"It would've made for a very, very young Chargers team. We'd be hard-pressed. When you do that I don't think it helps at the Miners' level either."
The older peewee players will move up and suit up with the Steelers this year.
"The younger kids that are more timid and not ready to move up yet, we're going to allow them to participate and become atom Miners. Unfortunately, they won't be able to play in any of the games," he said.
EMF is hoping to arrange some exhibition games for the peewee players.
"We pushed it absolutely as long as we could, hoping we could find more kids. We had a pretty extensive advertising campaign including newspapers, digital ads around town and social media."
Suddenly without a team to coach, McLellan will help out with the Miners this year. That team has a new head coach, with Wanda Harron taking over the reins this season. Phil Zajac will again be at the helm for the Steelers.
Meanwhile, work continues at Dana Quewezance Memorial Field inside the Woodlawn Regional Park. EMF's season opener, with both teams playing, is Aug. 24.
The day will be complete with games, family activities and a barbecue, with the Saskatchewan Roughriders' game against Edmonton being shown inside the Souris Valley Theatre. The festivities will wrap up with a party in the park cabaret featuring Wonderland and Chris Henderson.
"The buildings are coming along. We still have a bit of work to do, but our goal is to be done by the 24th. The field is in pretty good shape. Adult soccer, I believe, is already playing on it. We're babying it as much as we can, but it should be good to go," McLellan said.
He added that work is being done inside the concession building, although it may not look like it from the outside. A new scoreboard still needs to be erected.
McLellan said it was hoped that the lights could be installed by the 24th, but "it's a little lower in priority than the buildings."
With EMF being unable to use the field for the last two years after the 2011 flooding, McLellan said he can't wait to be back.
"I don't think there's too many people that are as excited about it as I am. Ever since it happened in the spring of 2011, I've been looking forward to this day.
"I'm kinda getting tired and worn out now, but hopefully it gets done and we'll be good to go. I believe we've been able to reach our goal of not only returning to where it was, but I think it'll be in better condition than it was."
Minor football practices got underway last night at Chow Field. Registrations are still being accepted, but people are encouraged to do that as soon as possible.
