CANMORE – It’s a must-win situation Saturday (Oct. 26) for the Canmore Wolverines, as the season and playoffs lie in the balance.
In the first round of the Big Sky League playoffs, the high school football team takes on the Olds Spartans at 1 p.m. at Canmore’s Millennium Field for a chance to advance to the Big Sky finals and earn a zones playoff berth.
The good news about the high stakes situation is the Wolverines are 2-0 against the Spartans this season, but head coach Spencer Rose isn’t using that as an excuse to go easy in the do-or-die game.
“If we come out flat, that’s our season,” said Rose. “The messaging going in is they’re a serious opponent and we have to play our best to beat them.”
In two games against Olds this season, the Wolverines have dominated and put up 110 points on the scoreboard. In Canmore’s five other games, they’ve managed just 44 points combined. But Rose doesn’t want the Wolverines to relax for the game that might be viewed as a pushover matchup.
“With an opponent like that … they’re a proud team, well coached and they’re going to come in ready to play,” Rose said.
“We definitely have an idea what we want to do on offence and found a few things we can clean up on … we still have a few issues on the special teams and [we have to] do better on defence.”
Should the Wolverines win against Olds, they’ll be going for a first-ever three-peat of the Big Sky championship against archrival the Drumheller Titans.
This season, the Wolverines have been edged out twice against the Titans, losing 14-12 and 14-6.
“I’ve thought to this point we’ve underachieved outside of [playing] Olds,” Rose said. “We’ve been changing the playbook and changing things up and we’re coming together a bit better to hopefully put it all together in the playoffs.”
