REGINA -- The Saskatoon Valkyries and Regina Riot are no strangers to one another on the Western Women’s Canadian Football League field.
The intra-province rivals have had many battles over the years in the six-team league, with plenty of close results between the two -- including a barnburner of a league final in 2024 that saw Saskatoon prevail 36-21.
The teams will take the field in another major playoff match-up on Saturday afternoon when Saskatoon hosts Regina in the Prairie Conference Final, with a spot in the WWCFL Championship game on the line.
“It's very exciting,” said Valkyries head coach Pat Barry on the CKRM Riders Broadcast Network pregame show Friday afternoon. “They are our biggest rival, and that's because they're a well-coached football team. We know a lot of people down the road there, and they do a lot of things right. We know a lot of members of their coaching staff, they're great people. When it's Regina, Saskatoon, it's always a little more intense, and it's a lot of fun.”
The four-time defending champion Valkyries went undefeated in the regular season with a 4-0 record, including a pair of close wins over the Riot -- 17-7 in Week 2 back in early May and 16-0 in Week 5 on June 1.
The Riot finished the regular season with a 1-3 record but came up with a big win when they needed it, downing the Manitoba Fearless 22-8 in the Prairie Conference semifinal last weekend.
That has Barry and the Valkyries taking nothing for granted, especially knowing Regina is playing some good football at the moment.
“This is something that we knew had a real possibility of happening,” Barry said. “Regina's a very good team, and it's a team that we expected to see again before the end of the year… But we know we're going to get, we always get everybody's best game. That's something that we're prepared for. We're always trying to look at it where we try and go 1-0 every week, that's the way we always try and look at it's something that we want to try and prepare for Saturday as well.”
Regina head coach Claire Dore has been happy with her team’s progress from the start of the campaign and is hoping to see her team take another step in a positive direction Saturday afternoon.
“Our focus all year has just been to continue to build and to sort of see where our greatest strengths are,” she said. “Hopefully we've figured all that out and we're ready to put that all on the field together [Saturday].”
Playing in the Conference Final against Saskatoon helps make the big game just a little more special, and Dore has little doubt her players will be looking forward to the challenge.
“We know very well that the north-south battle in Saskatchewan is very strong, and it’s no accident that there's things like the Prairie Challenge Cup, The Battle of Highway 11, all those things have been around forever because of our feelings in Regina about Saskatoon and vice versa,” Dore said. “The great thing is I don't need to provide extra motivation, just by the nature of who we're going up against and the opportunity that's in front of us.”
Kick-off in the WWCFL Prairie Conference Final is 1 p.m. at Saskatoon Minor Football Field.
The winner will advance to the WWCFL Championship on Saturday, June 28 and will face the winner of the Western Conference Final between the Edmonton Arctic Pride and Calgary Rage.
