Canadian Football League rookie last season with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats Jordan Matechuk was one of a couple locals who returned home just in time for their respective camps which co-incided with the first-ever Football Week in the Parkland festivities.
Matechuk who had held his camp last year, decided to bring along a few friends to help develop some of the Parkland's young football talent.
They included Eddie Steele, a third-round draft pick of the Ti-Cats, Will Nyantakyi, who is going into his rookie year with the Clemson Tigers of the NCAA Division I football ranks, and Matt Henry, who was just recently signed by the Calgary Stampeders immediately following the CFL's draft day which was held last Sunday.
Henry said the football camp was awesome. They had about 85 kids come out and Henry said they spent an awful lot of time early on working on the basics. He added that they had the interesting challenge of having some participants who don't speak much english.
"That's a lot of kids," claimed Matechuk. "It was an extremely good time."
The former Yorkton Regional High School football player got home late on Thursday night just in time for the YRHS breakfast to kick-off the Riderville weekend festivities.
They included his camp, which he co-hosted with the players mentioned above and they found themselves coaching some older players ranging from Gr. 8-11.
He said it was awesome to be able to be a part of the Riderville activities and that it co-incided with the camp, made it an amazing experience.
"The whole experience with what's happening in Yorkton with Riderville...", he said before a brief pause, closing by saying, "it's totally great to see."
Riderville really blew us away, the influence of football here (is awesome)."Henry, who's team will be on the opposite side of the line of scrimmage this season when the Stampeders take on the Ti-Cats, said the camp gave himself and his colleagues a chance to go over the basics and teach them the rules of the game, as well as give Henry a chance to teach the youngsters the basics of his own position, the running back/half back
"On Friday, we did positioning, went over running backs, holding the ball, footspeed, and one-on-one play."
Saturday looked at kickoff positioning, returners and catching the ball, coverage as well as a mini scrimmage to close out the day before Henry, Matechuk and company headed to St. Mary's Ukrainian Centre for the minor football league fundraiser.
