A heavy rainstorm during Sunday’s Pro Bowl didn’t dampen the spirits of the members of Team Saskatchewan.
“It rained on us pretty badly,” Grayson Dakis said Tuesday as he and his family toured Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., “but (the NFL all-star game) was awesome.”
“I’ve never been to an NFL game before,” Jett Lamb added, “so to see all the best players was awesome.”
That adjective seems to best describe Team Saskatchewan’s experiences in Orlando, where the co-ed squad represented Canada in a flag football competition.
The 10 youths from Regina — Dakis, Lamb, Peter Boersch, Kaydin Clive, Jesse Engen, Jordyn Hein, Kaidyn Keith, Tayen Lloyd, Jaxon Thorne and Dayton Varga — went 2-2-0 during the tournament.
The Canadians posted 28-0 and 26-0 victories over two teams from China and lost 7-0 to a squad from Mexico in pool play. Team Saskatchewan then fell 7-0 to the United States in a semifinal that featured a close call.
“We caught a pass in the end zone, but it got called back because our quarterback’s foot was over the line of scrimmage by just a little bit,” said Lamb, a 12-year-old who’s in Grade 7 at McLurg School. “That was the game. It was defensive, back and forth all game.”
Team Saskatchewan was known as the North of Dewdney Junior Riders when it competed in a regional tournament in Regina. The team won all six of its games in that event to earn a spot in the CFL NFL Flag Football Championship in Ottawa during Grey Cup Week.
The Reginans went 5-0-1 in the nation’s capital to earn the right to represent Canada in Orlando. Overall, Team Saskatchewan finished its season with a 13-2-1 record.
“(The football in Florida) was really good,” Lamb said. “When we played the U.S., they were really physical. When we played in Ottawa, it was nothing like that. (The Americans) were really physical and they weren’t afraid to use their bodies.”
“We only gave up 14 points the entire tournament (in Orlando), so I feel like we did pretty well competing against world-class athletes,” added Dakis, a 12-year-old Grade 7 student at Plainsview School.
The tournament was only part of the experience for the players, their coaches and the members of their families.
They had a chance to rub shoulders with NFL players during a meet-and-greet Thursday (“They were really tall — ho-ly!” Lamb said) and that gave them an opportunity to have a little back and forth with Buffalo Bills tailback LeSean McCoy.
“We were meeting him and he was like, ‘Argos all the way,’ ” Dakis explained. “We were like, ‘No, no, no — Riders.’ ”
“He said his main man is (Toronto receiver) DeVier Posey,” Lamb said. “We had quite a few conversations with him about that.”
After exploring Walt Disney World on Friday, the Saskatchewan contingent had its own games to play Saturday. Then came the rain-soaked Pro Bowl on Sunday.
A few of the players and their families returned to Regina on Monday, but others extended their stays in Florida for a couple of days. All of the members of Team Saskatchewan will return with memories that will last a lifetime.
“We got to meet lots of players from different countries and parts of the world and I got to swap jerseys with players from Mexico,” Lamb said. “We got to meet them and hang out with them at the resort. It was awesome.”
“It has been amazing to be able to travel and compete at an international level with a bunch of my friends,” Dakis noted. “(Everything outside of football) has been really good too, because we’re able to be here with our friends and our family and do all the cool things that are here.”
