With the end of another year in the books, the Calgary AFC has once again completed another successful albeit up-and-down season, capped by the team’s stellar performance at the US Nationals Championship in Florida in October to take home the trophy for the Men’s Division 2 bracket.
The year started with our usual annual indoor intro-to-footy pre-season sessions during the late-winter/early-spring months to jump start the conditioning and skills of our existing players as well as introduce newcomers to this unique sport that we all love.
The tournaments the club participated in including Kelowna, Bow Valley, and Edmonton were once again a success, with our own Stampede Cup as the highlight as we hosted teams from Edmonton, Bow Valley and the local Irish Gaelic Football team to play during Stampede week.
A few weeks before the US Nationals Championship in Florida, the club held a few extra training and game sessions in order to get our players ready and to discuss game strategy before jetting off to the’ ‘Sunshine State’ to take on teams from several USA states in a bid to take back home the Division 2 Cup for the third time in the club’s history.
Led by club veteran Dane Rolfe and team captain Daniel Pertot, the ‘Roos kicked a division best 19 goals in sweeping aside Minnesota, Chicago, and Boston on their way to the club’s first D2 grand final since 2011.
The ‘Roos battled the wind and a formidable Columbus team in the grand final and won convincingly to secure the championship, the club’s third in this division.
Overall, 2016 has been a solid year for the club despite facing the tough economic downturn as well as losing many players from last season’s squads.
The ‘Roos Nationals squads welcomed seven first-year local players this year, an improvement from last year and they helped us compete for the championship.
We were also able to secure a couple of new sponsors with “Competition Concrete” and “The Pie Hole” which has helped us in funding throughout the year.
The club looks forward to a fresh new start in 2017 and will begin the campaign to rejoin the Division One teams in the race for the title in San Diego with the first pre-season training of the year schedule to commence January 31st at the Genesis Centre. Stay tuned to our website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages for details on the full slate of indoor sessions planned for the coming months.
Last Modified on 10/10/2018 05:34