A handful of local players have made it onto Football Alberta's U16B team. Football Alberta as a provincial association puts together teams that will represent Alberta and will be playing Western and National events. The Alberta team will be playing the western four provinces to determine a champion.  This is all part of player development through Football Canada where their goal is to create opportunities for young athletes.    

Tim Enger, Executive Director of Football Alberta said, "Many things have changed in Canadian football to the point where there is a national team and we send them to play internationally.  This opens up the possibility for some of those players to play on the World Junior teams."

The U16 program has been around since 1995 and Football Canada running their 3rd annual Western Challenge that produced teams that were high enough caliber to play in the International Bowl in Dallas, Texas.  The competition is quite competitive and approximately 300 players tried out for 40 spots.  Local football players Brady Johansen, Jack Warrack, Bennet Salmon from Strathmore and Yianni Georgacacos all made the cut.

Enger went on to say, "Sometimes it gets pretty skewed toward the big city kids, but it is important for all areas to try out so they can get a baseline, or level to where their athletes are and sometimes they get some great players from Medicine Hat, Grande Prarie and Strathmore and it is good validation to the coaches who put in the effort there."