Moose Jaw Minor Football is moving forward this year with a new president.

Bryan Boys takes over the role and is excited for the season to start.

He said having nine-man football for the U14 and U12 divisions has seen some advantages for the league.

“Not only was the football great and competitive, both of our Moose Jaw teams ending up winning the league, which was awesome, but it allowed a lot of smaller centres to join the league, so we’ve added teams in Moosomin, and Assiniboia was able to have teams in the U12 and U14 divisions,” said Boys. “We’re looking at Swift Current joining again this year and Shaunavon for our U14, so there’s an opportunity for nine teams there.”

Boys said that last year, Moosomin had only a U10 and U12 program but they’re planning on adding the U14 team.

“It’s given these smaller centres an opportunity to play football, where it sometimes hard to find leagues,” he said. “It’s awesome to be able to add some of these smaller towns.”

Football, however, is one of the outdoor activities where there’s less certainty about when the 12-man game will be allowed again. Often, between players, coaches and officials, even two-teams playing nine-man football would be pushing beyond the current limit of 50 people outdoors at one activity.

Boys isn't sure if they'll be getting the go-ahead for groups larger than 50.

“We are following closely to Sask Football and their guidelines and everything they’re doing as well, but basically, we’re still in a wait and see mode, with hopes that that number will grow,” Boys said. “Now with that said, we do have plans in place where we’ll going to make football happen no matter what, whether we have to go to mini-leagues and shorten our teams to make sure the kids have something to do on the fields, but we’re certainly looking at football this year, 100 percent.

Registration for this season closes August 4th. Numbers have been looking good so far this year.

“They’re pretty much where we thought they would be without COVID,” Boys said.

This year, they've partnered with Highland Rehabilitation Centre to have injury assessment available.

"They make all player injury assessments and they have final decision on whether players are cleared to return to play or not. Having their staff available to our players was something we started to build last year and we are excited to see it grow in the future," Boys said. 

Boys is the president, while Zeljko Stefanovic is the vice president. Brock Montgomery is the registrar and Steven MacAuley is the secretary.  Minor football mainstay Scott Montgomery is the former president but is staying with the organization.

“We want to thank him. He’s put in a ton of years,” Boys said. “He’s been on the board for over 20 (years) and he’s a coach for many years, and he’s going to stick around and still be a coach in the league.”

Boys said that he and Stefanovic are looking forward to expanding this season.

“We’re both big football guys,” said Boys. “We’re excited to bring football camps to Moose Jaw. Some of our goals is to grow the league even more. A personal goal of mine is I also want to bring women’s football to this city. I feel that it’s time. There’s a lot of teams doing really well in Regina, Yorkton, Moosomin, and I know Estevan’s starting to do it and Melville’s got a team. I feel like it’ll be a huge upgrade in this town and I think it’ll be very popular.”