Muskies gearing up for football season

The Muskie football team’s training camp is in full swing as the squad prepares for its regular-season opener here Sept. 8 against Kildonan East.
But despite having had less than a week of practices to evaluate his players, head coach Bob Swing has been impressed with what he’s seen so far, especially in terms of conditioning.
“I thought I’d be giving a bit of a speech about how they didn’t prepare themselves for football, but generally speaking 80 percent of them are in good to excellent shape,” he remarked.
Unlike last season when the team was made up mostly of young, inexperienced players, Swing will have the benefit of coaching athletes he’s familiar with—and who know what is expected of them.
“We have a lot of kids who are known quantities to us,” he said. “We know they’re not going to shy away from contact.”
But Swing also has been impressed with the crop of rookies in camp.
“At least three-quarters of them [the rookies] have played in the now defunct youth league,” Swing said of his new players. “A lot of them have already played, which is a good thing.
“They understand some of the challenges they’ll be facing when it comes to hitting.”
Expectations are high for the Muskies this season as they look to build on last year’s strong finish—specifically the season finale in which the they dismantled the Churchill Bulldogs 49-8.
Although Swing definitely would like to improve upon the Muskies’ 2-4-1 record in the Winnipeg High School Football League last fall, he would not set a target number of wins for the upcoming season.
Instead, Swing and his coaching staff are more interested in making the playoffs and hopefully advancing to the WHSFL’s championship game in November.
The black-and-gold have practices slated next Monday through Wednesday at Fort High before travelling to Winnipeg on Thursday to participate in a four-team scrimmage.