The Camrose Coyotes are now members of the Central Football League!

Saturday, January 19th marked the date of expansion of the Central Football League as it has merged with the Prairie Thunder Football League. The Bantam age league consisting of teams from Hunting Hills, Notre Dame and Lindsay Thurber of Red Deer, Innisfail, Olds, Lacombe, Sylvan Lake and Stettler has added five more teams.

The new additions are the Camrose Coyotes, Drumheller Titans, Springbank Phoenix, Strathmore Spartans, and Wetaskiwin Warriors.

The expansion meeting, held in Red Deer, enlarges the CFL to 13 teams and will permit the CFL to have representation in three of the four tiers of Provincial Bantam playoffs. The CFL now has representation in Tiers 2 through 4.

Our league schedule will commence in the last week of August, with playoffs beginning in the 2nd week of October.

What does this mean for the Coyotes?

The first advantage is that now the bantam league more closely resembles the high school league and we may see some double header games Bantam and high school. With the recent announcement that CMFS is starting teams at the Atom and Pee Wee levels, we may even get to have a “football day in Camrose” event where all levels get to play or at least participate in a similar event in another community. How exciting!

The second advantage is in the reduced travel. The league will be separated into divisions where every season we will play all the close proximity teams and only a select few teams from farther outreaching communities. This means we may not play the same teams in league play each season, but may have to face someone new in the playoffs whom matches up more closely with our level of competitiveness.