The Airdrie Northern Raiders cruised to a 41-12 win over the Calgary Falcons to win the Calgary Midget Football Association’s Divison II title at Calgary’s Shouldice Park May 30.
“It’s great,” said Raiders head coach Steve Kemp.
“It’s a great turnaround from last year. The boys have been working hard every night and they deserve everything they get. The big blowout win shows how hard they were working.”
It’s the Raiders second Division II title. It won it’s first in 2009, but the subsequent seasons have been a struggle for the team. Last season, the team, which includes players from Airdrie, Crossfield and Disbury, went 1-6.
“(The difference this year) was the talent and the mindset,” said second-year quarterback Duncan Little.
“We had the mindset to win and we had the mindset that we were one of the best teams in the league and that we could win this title. We even though we should’ve won Division I.
“We have extraordinary talent on both sides of the ball and we knew we should be doing better than we were.”
“We were just a bit older and wiser this year,” Kemp added.
“The commitment level was good every night and every practice. They pushed each other and the coaches to be better. They weren’t satisfied with mediocre play.”
For many of the team’s veteran players, the title was one they had been waiting for a few years and playing through the seasons of struggles came with a big payback in the from of the championship trophy.
Wide receiver Christian Hanson, who played his first season with the Raiders back in 2011 and rejoined the team this season, praised Little’s play and said it was special to close out his midget football career with the win.
“It’s the best feeling you could possibly ask for,” he said.
“It’s overwhelming and impossible to express. Everything we practiced came together consistently and honestly, practice made perfect.
“Our coaches kept pressing on the fact that we needed to start the game better. We never started scoring until the second half. They kept emphasizing that and eventually it clicked.”
Kemp said that another perk of winning the title is establishing a winning culture with the Raiders, something that he said the team has struggled with in the past.
“This is something we’re definitely going to build on,” he said.
“We’ll definitely be a team that knows how to win now. I thought a lot of times this year we had trouble and we didn’t always know how to win. I think we’ll be a dangerous team next year.”
