Calgary High School Football: the Season So Far

The Calgary High School Football season has reached the end of the month of September, along with four weeks of regular season play in the senior league. This season shaped up to be an interesting one thanks to a significant change in the league structure regarding division classification. Instead of the traditional practice of dividing the school teams into divisions for the season, this year all member clubs are in one division for the duration of the regular season. What this has done so far is that it's given some teams the opportunity to compete against a variety of opponents instead of facing the same ones year after year, and while the usual suspects have put themselves in familiar positions in the standings, there have also been some pleasant surprises along the way.

The way the standings work this year is that there's a tiered points system based on which teams earned wins against certain opponents...meaning some games carry more weight than others depending on the opponent. Games against historically ranked teams are worth 4 points, while games against lesser opponents are worth anywhere from 3 points to 1 point. Every week, the points are calculated by the league office and the standings are published as such. At the end of the regular season, the teams are grouped in divisions for the playoffs...the top six teams are placed in Division 1, the next eight teams are in the Division 2A bracket, and the next eight teams after that are put in the Division 2B bracket, with the bottom five teams (four after Nelson Mandela's withdrawal) playing in Division 3.

Nelson Mandela's football team was forced to forfeit all their games this season due to an insufficient number of eligible players on their roster...the players have since been absorbed by Lester B. Pearson's team. Arguably, the biggest surprise of the season so far has been Bowness; they're coming off back-to-back upset wins against two former Division 1 regulars: Centennial and All Saints. This puts Bowness in third place overall in the league standings, behind only Notre Dame and St. Francis. Meanwhile, Centennial and Henry Wise Wood, two schools who used to regularly compete in Division 1, are both winless this year and are in a position to compete in the Division 3 playoffs. Ernest Manning, who won 2 of the last 3 Division 1 Championships, is currently a Division 1 bubble team...they sit 2-1 in league play and are currently tied with Central Memorial for sixth place, while still maintaining their number six ranking in Alberta. Full standings can be found here: http://calgaryhighschoolsports.ca/news.php?news_id=2063565

Looking ahead to Week Five: Football Alberta has named the Ernest Manning-St. Francis game as the game of the week in the 5A tier. Number 3 ranked St. Francis has been rolling through the season with relative ease, but this will be their biggest test yet, going up against Number 6 Ernest Manning in a rematch of last year's epic Division 1 City Final. This will be the only game featuring ranked teams in Calgary, as Notre Dame, who rose up to Number 4 in the rankings, is on a bye week. For the full schedule, including information about game times and venues, visit calgaryhighschoolsports.ca