Top age-class football players here

FOX 40 PROSPECT CHALLENGE

St. Thomas More’s Zachary Beno will be among the featured players when the Fox 40 Prospect Challenge (FPC) takes place this weekend at Tim Hortons Field.

The series of games spotlights many of Ontario’s top age-class football players and Beno will quarterback the “west” entry in the varsity (grades 11 and 12) division, the oldest age category.

Beno was named the best offensive player in his game (against the central selects) last year, when the showcase weekend was known as the Ontario Prospects Challenge. Fox 40 came on board for 2017, the event’s fourth year.

There will be three age classes of high school players — freshmen, junior and varsity — plus a “minor” division for players in grades 5 and 6. In the High school divisions, teams will represent the west (Hamilton and west), Halton-Peel, central (GTA and north) and east (Ottawa and area).

In the minor division, representatives from Cleveland, Ohio will play an Ontario west team on Friday afternoon and a Halton-Peel team Saturday morning.

Lee Barette, who owns Canadafootballchat.com, the proprietors and promoters of the game, says the top Grade 11 performers this weekend will be chosen to play for Central Canada in the keynote Battle of the Best against an all-star team from B.C. at the Fox 40 Prospect Challenge in Ottawa, May 6.

Ontario players in grades 7 and 8 will also have their prospect games in Ottawa the same weekend.

The Fox 40 prospects series has expanded into B.C. this year, with three all-star showcase games set for Coquitlam on Saturday, May 13.

As it did last year, the Canadian Football League will use the varsity games in the FPC series to evaluate amateur officials for OUA and CFL potential.

“The identification of talent isn’t just restricted to players,” Glen Johnson, the CFL’s senior vice-president of football, said in a press release.

The showcase is a three-step process. Players went to local tryouts in December and January, and the top players there advanced to selection camps in February, and follow up with games this weekend.

The Prospect Challenge is a business enterprise, and it cost players $50 for tryouts, $99 for selection camp and $149 for Prospect Challenge weekend. But Barette points out that, “Through fundraisers like 50-50 draws, in the past four years we’ve provided over $10,000 in scholarships to play in the Challenge for players who can’t otherwise afford it.”

Games and player interviews will be streamed on Canadafootballchat.com.