Photo credit: Alberta Schools' Athletic Association/Facebook.

By Curtis Galbraith

High School Football

Alberta Bowl coming to Grande Prairie this weekend

Nov 22, 2024 | 6:00 AM

Five Alberta high school football champions are being decided at CKC Field this weekend.

Grande Prairie will host the Alberta Bowl Friday and Saturday.

Football Alberta Executive Director Tim Enger says the Board of the Alberta Schools Athletic Association decided a long time ago to move the Alberta Bowl around the province if there was a facility available.

“The event requires a certain amount of things like locker rooms, a press box, a decent field, that artificial turf field.”

“All these things weren’t present in Grande Prairie before this field came around. Now they are and it’s worthy of hosting an event of this nature.”

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“Before 2008, when they consolidated the Alberta Bowl, provincial finals were held in a host town, so whoever would get to the final, whether it was north or south.”

“There’d be these one-offs happening all over the place, and that was fine, but what you’ll find with this event is that you get five games of great football and every game feeds off each other and it just makes for just an outstanding football event.”

Enger says football is a game that gets played in most weather conditions; poor air quality, electrical storms, and extreme cold being the exceptions.

“I know the host committee up there has done a lot of work in terms of building shelters on the field, having heating systems on the benches. We do take our breaks. We do have half-times and so on, so forth in a heated venue.”

“It’s not great, but that is the beauty of football. We play our sport regardless of what Mother Nature throws at us.”

The first game will be the 6-a-side final between the JC Charyk Hawks from Hanna versus the Millwoods Christian Royals from Edmonton. Kick-off at 2:30 p.m. Friday.

The Peace River Pioneers play the Ponoka Broncos at 6 p.m. in the 9-a-side final.

There are three games on Saturday.

At 11 a.m., the Holy Rosary Raiders from Lloydminster will play the Cochrane Cobras in the 3A final.

The hometown hosts St. Joe’s Celtics will play the Holy Trinity Academy Knights from Okotoks in the 4A final starting at 2:30 p.m.

The Harry Ainley Titans take on the Raymond Comets in the 5A final. Kick off for that game will be 6 p.m.