GROWING THE GAME
New provincial under-16, six-man football team will wear the Island’s colours in its debut Saturday in Charlottetown
New provincial under-16, six-man football team will wear the Island’s colours in its debut Saturday
You can’t get much nearer to the grassroots than Prince Edward Island’s new under-16, six-man tackle football team.
Parents are coaches, managers and chauffeurs, game jerseys are on order and the head coach, Steve Letner, also coaches with two other teams at different levels.
At a recent practice, the team didn’t use either of the primo turf fields at the Terry Fox Sports Complex in Cornwall (youth soccer had those digs) and instead prepped for its debut matchup Saturday versus Nova Scotia on the grass surface across the Eliot River School’s parking lot from the turf field.
Kickoff for Saturday’s exhibition game is 1 p.m. at MacAdam Field on the UPEI campus.
Letner jokes he has virtually no budget and as of yet no sponsorship (that’s not a joke). The group doesn’t even have a nickname and, for now, calls itself simply Team P.E.I.
So what’s the point? Well, let the players, specifically 14-years-old Dominic Green and Steven Acorn, lead the way.
Both play in the P.E.I. Tackle Football League, Green with the Cornwall system and Acorn with Kings County.
Green came to the game by
watching his dad (and Team P.E.I. assistant coach) Mark Green play and watching football on television. Acorn’s brothers Zack and Ryan played and inspired his gridiron jones.
“I just wanted to try my hand at playing a different (type) of ball. Set the provincial scene,” said Green, who’s a cornerback and wide receiver. “Obviously, I’d like to get some wins, but I want to progress and get better for the fall season. And get as many (players) out as possible.” Acorn sees it a similar way. “Just be the best player I can be and help the team win,” said the linebacker/wide receiver.
If those are words to melt a coach’s heart, then Letner’s ticker is likely still mushy.
The Columbus, Ohio, native moved to P.E.I. with his wife Beverley and their two children
three years ago and the football junkie jumped right into Football P.E.I.’s works.
He’s a former wide receiver himself, until a growth spurt sent him into the trenches as an offensive or defensive lineman and sometimes as a linebacker.
“Football … I learned a lot from it. It’s a fun sport, a good sport. It’s teaches them about life. (You’ll have) good times and bad,” said Letner, who’s also the new head coach of the Charlottetown Privateers varsity squad and an assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for the Holland College Hurricanes.
The energetic Letner also aims to increase the profile of football, which he sees is in an upward swing now, at all levels. He’s fond of the six-man game because it means players learn several positions which can help raise their football IQs.
Saturday’s game is the first of several exhibition contests this summer, culminating in the Atlantic Challenge in July in Wolfville, N.S.
The challenge, which includes teams from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, is an exhibition showcase as part of the Easterns. It’s a popular sport in other provinces, Letner said, pointing out Saskatchewan counts about 2,500 players in its six-man program.
P.E.I. is also slated to play in a jamboree later this month in Antigonish, N.S.
To help with the under-16s, Letner recruited Green (also defensive co-ordinator), Devon Sparman, Hurricanes co-offensive co-ordinator (assistant coach) and Shawn Fraser of the Kings County program (manager, assistant coach).
And that, said Letner, will be the key to reaching his vision’s end for the under-16s.
“It’s not a team, it’s a program. The mindset is seeing the big picture,” he said. “We can get the football community to work together and grow the sport.”
The team, which practices Wednesdays in Cornwall and Saturdays in Montague, has a GoFundMe page. Letner can be reached at stephenletner@ yahoo.com or 902-620-9460.