It's a good bet the rest of the season won't get much tougher than Friday night for the Hugh Boyd Trojans.
Richmond's lone high school football program will kickoff the 2012 campaign in Cloverdale by continuing its rivalry with the Lord Tweedsmuir Panthers. While the teams have played some intriguing games over the years, it's getting tougher and tougher for the Trojans to keep pace.
Thanks to growing enrollment and benefitting from the powerful Cloverdale Minor Football Association, the Panthers have been thriving. They now play at the "AAA" level and were listed as an honourable mention in the pre-season provincial rankings.
Students are hardly banging down the door to play football at Hugh Boyd but thanks to the tireless efforts of longtime coaches Bill and Bruce Haddow, the program is alive and well with albeit modest roster numbers.
The Trojans will dress 26 players for the season opener and hope they can hang tough with Tweedsmuir and produce something similar to last year's 21-7 defeat.
"We probably have bit off more than we can chew but this game is part of our tradition and we wanted to keep the rivalry going," said Bill Haddow. "I think it's pretty safe to say it will be our toughest game of the season."
The Trojans are coming off a successful 2011 campaign that saw them win their post-season opener against Robert Bateman then hang tough for two quarter with the third ranked Ballenas Whalers before bowing out of the provincial playoffs. They return a handful of key players who are ready to take on greater roles.
"We have about five or six kids back who were solid players for us last year," continued Haddow, who put his team through two-a-day workouts last week. We also have some junior players who are capable of playing at senior ball but our belief has always been to let them first have success at that level and not put our junior team in a difficult spot."
Boyd will be fielding two teams in the fall and trying something different with its Grade 8 program by moving it to the spring. Although it means no longer being part of the B.C. High School Football regular season, it follows a successful blueprint that was created by North Shore schools.
"It gives Grade 8 students time to get comfortable being in a new school before they have to consider playing football," added Haddow. "These kids will benefit from going right into spring camp with the junior team (for the following season).
"It also allows us to better utilize our resources by having two seasons which means less coaches are needed."
The Trojans senior team will continue its tradition of Friday night football by playing its home season opener against Handsworth on Sept. 14 at 7 p.m.
