During the start of the 2017 ELECS Football season there was a lot of uncertainty about what the team would be made up of as well as the type of players.

"We graduated a significant portion of our 2016 team, but what we saw was a nice surplus of youth and coach-able players and skill and a lot of potential," explained Head Coach Mark Schott.

"Although this year was definitely a transitional year for us, we have almost 90% of our team returning for the 2018 season. That's something to be excited about and a lot of those young players that joined our team this year ended up being key contributors for us. We're very excited about what the 2018 season and beyond may hold for ELECS Football." 

Hunter Eagles was one of the valuable players this year. 

"Hunter Eagles was exceptional for us and it's very rare that a grade 9 player comes into high-school football and makes an impact on one side of the ball. Hunter was terrific for us and he was so good on both sides of the football that we couldn't take him off of offense or defense," stated Mark Schott. 

"He made such an impact for us and he finished in the top 3 in league rushing. Hunter has just had a phenomenal season for us as the season started to progress and he got more and more comfortable, some of those leadership qualities started to emerge and players gravitated towards him. It's exciting to know that this is a player that we can build our team around and regenerate some excitement and some buzz within Estevan Football." 

Looking into the next year there are a few things that Mark Schott would like to change. 

"The biggest issue for us during 2017 was our youth and inexperience, based on the fact that most of our team has that one year of high-school football under their belt. They have a firm grasp on what it takes to compete at a high-school level and the caliber of football that is played at this level," he shared. 

"Our first game we had 32 players and 24 of those 32 players played their first ever high-school football game and 12 of those 24 played their first ever football game. those are pretty significant numbers and we're excited moving forward. We still have a young team but they also have experience at this level, so that's something that we hope to build off of and take a big step next year." 

"What we can add to our group, there's some really great minor football players coming up from the Bantam Oilers team and we're excited to add them to our group of young players and really have a nice young core for the next couple of seasons. There's some lineman that we can definitely use and improve our running game, there's some nice young and skilled players coming up as well that is just going to add to our depth and hopefully make us able to take that next step." 

"If we have the players that are able to swat in to a spot that would be great to limit the amount of players that play on both sides of the ball, it allows our players to stay fresh and stay competitive for the full four quarters of the game."

"Next year is an exciting year for us, it's our 10 year anniversary as a football program here in Estevan and we're hoping that with some young players coming up from minor football and the young core that we have that we will be able to compete in the Moose Jaw high-school football league.'