New Sabercats team in the mix

When the Ontario Football Conference season opens in May, the Sault Sabercats program stands to be pretty busy.

With teams already competing in the varsity and junior varsity levels, the Sabercats will have a team at the bantam level as well beginning this summer.

Players born in 2006 will make up much of the team with potentially some players born in 2007 mixed in as well.

Bantam Sabercats coach Greg Mathison said a recent information session on the new team was successful.

“The turnout was really good,” Mathison said. “We had a lot of familiar faces from Sault minor. We had some new faces come out too that are interested in the new team.”

The new team has been well received early on.

“The feedback we’ve got from players and parents is that they’re pretty excited about it,” Mathison said. “We made sure there would be enough interest to field a competitive team before we applied for one.”

Mathison added he expects registration numbers for the new team to be solid and he said a date for registration is still being confirmed.

“It’s an exciting time for football as a whole,” Mathison said of adding the new team. “It’s a new opportunity for kids to get into a travel program a little bit earlier and really help the older teams and help the kids get used to the systems a year earlier. It’s definitely exciting.”

“I was really excited to be selected as the coach,” Mathison added. “I know this age group really well from coaching them with the Bobcats and in Sault Minor.”

The schedule will be similar to the ones played by the varsity and junior varsity teams with four home games and four on the road.

Mathison said the possibility of triple headers with the three teams with he other Sabercats teams.

To save on cost for teams traveling in, markets that have teams in all three divisions will only have one of the three travel north in any given season.

“The plan is everybody will send one of their three teams up here every year,” Mathison said. “If we do (have triple headers), it will probably be three different teams, which will be kind of neat for fans.”

As the team prepares for the season, Mathison said an open skills night will be set up after the March break.

The schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but the plan is for the season to open in mid- to late-May.