The boys stopped at a construction zone, waiting their turn to proceed. It was just an innocent thing, then three at once.” “There was an innocence,” Schmaltz said the other day while sitting in his office at the high school in Carrot River. Then they drove towards home, towards that construction zone, and that semi truck, and the horror of a moment nobody can get back, no matter how badly they want to. Here, at this camp, they might find those extra two points buried in a gem of wisdom from a guest coach, or in a honed tackling technique, or a freshly-discovered means of negotiating the gaps on a field. They were buoyed by memories of their last gridiron appearance, a 45-44 provincial semifinal loss to the Gull Lake Lions - which, as football games sometimes do, ripped the hearts out of those three boys and their teammates. Skalicky, Gaja and Stevenson made the two-hour drive from Carrot River, and they immersed themselves in football. That’s why a handful of them headed to Humboldt this spring for the Kelly Bates Football Camp, which is run by a long-time CFL player and coach who wants to keep Saskatchewan football development strong. Nobody gets cut if you get up early for practice and follow the rules, you’re a Wildcat. There’s a tight bond between the community and its football program. They reached the provincial semifinal the following season and have since won four Saskatchewan six-man titles. But Schmaltz, and the program, proved stubborn. They learned to play, and to love, the game of football thanks to Schmaltz’s efforts years earlier. In the larger picture, these practical considerations are mere specks.īut the boys cherished their X and O alter-egos. Article contentįrom the clinical, emotionless, clipboard perspective of game plans and X’s and O’s, the horror that played out on a stretch of Highway 6 back on May 3 cost the Wildcats three X’s.Īll three would have started on the Wildcats’ 2015 defence - which, in the small world of six-man football, represented half the unit. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The three deceased are Justin Gaja, Kristian Skalicky and Carter Stevenson. The scars cut deep - into family, into friends, into townspeople, into Cory Schmaltz’s high school football program. The press has departed, the town has resumed its normal pace of life, but nobody forgets. A quiet town of 1,000 souls became, for a few days, the focus of cameras, reporters, outsiders seeking to tell a story of loss and tragedy. Those funerals, and the circumstances surrounding them, caught the widespread attention of provincial media. Two thousand people, double the town’s population, converged there nearly six months earlier for three funerals, one after the other, youngest to oldest. Hard by the football field and these spirited exertions is Carrot River’s hockey arena, looming large behind the bleachers. They race through the gloaming, pink sky in the east, stars fading, breath coming fast.

Then he puts the boys through wind sprints and drills. “We run ’til we can see,” says head coach Cory Schmaltz, and it sounds like he’s smiling, though his voice emanates from a nearly-invisible body.

Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.We saw a lot of funnel clouds which are tornado-like cloud features that don't touch the ground,' Phillips said. 'Some of that active weather made its way to Saskatchewan. Tornado touches down near Estevan, Sask.He said in one weekend, Alberta saw half a year's worth of tornadoes. 'A disgusting mess': State of emergency declared in Estevan, Sask., after heavy rainfallĪccording to Phillips, most of the extreme weather hit the Prairie provinces following Canada Day. States of emergency declared in Arborfield and Carrot River, Sask. 'The best thing about Canadian weather is that it doesn't stand around and torment you like it does in other parts of the world,' said Phillips. He said things should start to clear up by late Tuesday evening. The best thing about Canadian weather is that it doesn't stand around and torment you like it does in other parts of the world. More heavy rainfall warnings in effect across SaskatchewanĪlthough the weather has been extreme in the past few days, it's going to get better, according to Phillips.Watrous, Sask., was rainiest spot in province Monday.'I look at the forecast and see seven days with nothing but great Saskatchewan sunshine and lots of time to dry things out,' David Phillips, senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning. The cloudy skies in Saskatchewan are about to clear away.

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