Football may be a few weeks away for the Yorkton Regional High School Raiders, but the future of the city's football programs kicked off their seasons at home this weekend as the Yorkton Minor Football Atom and Peewee Gridders hosted their 2014 openers at Century Field on Sunday.
Continuing the tradition of Yorkton programs in Regina Minor Football, both the Atom and Peewee programs recorded strong numbers once again and both teams showed flashes of talent along with promise during an entertaining doubleheader of football action on Sunday afternoon.
The day started off on a high as the Atom Gridders put up a 33-0 win in their 2014 debut while the Peewee Gridders faced a tough Regina Riders team that eventually ran away in the second half with a hard fought victory that despite the loss for Yorkton, showed that once again the minor football program in the city will be providing quality youth football this fall.
Atom Gridders coach Jason Boyda mentions that coaching players who are either brand new to the game or who are still developing on both the physical as well as most importantly the mental side of the game is a challenge that Yorkton Minor Football coaches embrace with an attitude to building fundamentals in practice as much as possible. Something that involves making practices both serious as well as fun.
"Practice is obviously extremely important for the minor football program both in developing skills as well as for keeping kids interested in football by putting them in positions where they can succeed and build confidence," said Boyda. "We make sure to remind our players that football is fun, but practice time is also time to focus on football even if it is fun because that is apart of being on a team and I think that paid off for our Atoms as we scored the majority of our points in the first half as the better prepared team."
Boyda also mentioned that working with younger players at the Atom level he has been impressed with how well his players have focused in practice so far. "Even if we tell our players practice time is focus time these are all pretty young kids so I have been really impressed with how much our players have wanted to learn and have wanted to get better before our first game so hopefully they will continue to enjoy what we are doing as the season goes on."
Both Yorkton teams will be on the road next week, but the YMF program features many home games over the late summer and early fall at Century Field as the Atoms, Peewees as well as the Bantam teams bolster the football action in town.
Visit the Regina Minor Football web site for a complete list of games.
