1999 was a banner year for the
Capital Area Minor Football Association. The size of our organization grew
substantially. We had over 300 kids playing football, by far the largest number
in our history.
We started a new Mosquito tackle football
league for children aged 10-11. It operated with 85 kids on 5 teams and was an
unqualified success. Our Squirt flag football league for 7-9 year olds marked
its fourth season by expanding to set up a team in Oromocto.
In our PeeWee program we found sponsors
and purchased new game and practice jerseys for all three teams.
The old game PeeWee game jerseys worked well as game jerseys for our Mosquito
teams.
At the Bantam level we moved our three
teams into the area high schools as junior varsity teams, the Fredericton Junior
Black Kats, Leo Hayes Junior Lions and Oromocto Junior Blues. We were pleasantly
surprised at how warmly the school administrations welcomed us. The Junior Black
Kats won our first ever minor football provincial
championship by defeating the Moncton Junior Knights 8-6 in an exciting Bantam
final at Rocky Stone Field in Moncton.
We also fielded a team in the first ever
provincial 16 & Under Elite tournament held at Moncton in June , 1999.
We developed our own website on the
internet at www.capitalareafootball.nb.ca as well as a site for Football
New Brunswick at www.footballnewbrunswick.nb.ca . Our site proved to be a
hit with both players and parents. One of the most popular pages on our site was
our Football Trivia Quiz. Twice each week during the season we posted a question
on this page. The first registered player to e-mail in the correct answer won a
CFL team hat.
We held our first ever Minor Football Day
at an FHS football game. There were 40 yard races at halftime with DQ coupons
for all participants and trophies for the top three finishers in each race.
The first ever Capital Area Pass,
Punt& Kick contest was held in October with trophies going to the top three
in each age group. Our 13 & Under champion would go on to win both the New
Brunswick and Maritime Championships.
A Level I NCCP clinic took place in June
with 14 coaches attending, including coaches from FHS, LHHS and St. Stephen.
On the fundraising front we were
able to find sponsors to cover the majority of the cost of the five sets of new
game jerseys that we bought during the year. We raffled off an escape weekend at
Howard Johnsons and made $1,200. Our first ever Tag Day netted $900 and we made
a $1,000 profit by doing the team pictures ourselves.
For 2000
we will concentrate on consolidating our growth and making our programs better.
The only major new thing that we would like to do is start a High School
Girls Football team at Fredericton High School. We need at least two
more schools to field teams in order to have a league. Is anybody else
interested in starting a league ?
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