Team Saskatchewan is set to take on the world

For the first time ever, Regina has produced a group of football players who are going to the Pro Bowl.

Ten youths from the Queen City — Peter Boersch, Kaydin Clive, Grayson Dakis, Jesse Engen, Jordyn Hein, Kaidyn Keith, Jett Lamb, Tayen Lloyd, Jaxon Thorne and Dayton Varga — are heading to Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday to take in the NFL’s annual all-star game. The contest is to be played Sunday.

More importantly, the co-ed squad known as Team Saskatchewan (formerly the Junior Riders) is to represent Canada and the CFL in a flag football competition under the Florida sun.

“It’s a great honour,” says Thorne, a 13-year-old student at St. Angela Merici School. “It’ll be awesome to be able to go to the U.S. and represent Canada with our great team.”

“It’s going to be a really good experience to see how good other countries are at flag football,” adds Clive, a 12-year-old who attends Elsie Mironuck School. “They can show it’s not just the U.S.A. and Canada that are good at sports, it’s all around the world.

“It’s going to be good competition.”

Team Saskatchewan is to play squads from Mexico and China in pool play before the playoff round begins. The Canadians are guaranteed three games and could play as many as five if they make it to the final.

All of the games are set for Saturday.

Team Saskatchewan has gone a long way since being assembled “super-last minute” by head coach Tyler Lloyd.

He initially wasn’t interested in coaching a team in a regional tournament in Regina sponsored by the CFL and NFL, but a little arm-twisting by Football Saskatchewan director of operations Mike Thomas convinced Lloyd to put together a team.

The squad won all six of its games at the tournament, earning a trip to Ottawa for a national tournament during Grey Cup Week. The Junior Riders went undefeated in that event to win the CFL NFL Flag Football Championship.

“We really worked together,” says Thorne, whose team takes an 11-0-1 record to Orlando. “Some of us have known each other since we were little and we’ve played a lot of football. We really brought it together in the end.”

And, as a result, they’re off to Orlando to represent their country.

“There’s a little bit of pressure,” Clive admits, “but we’re just going to play the game we love to play and have some fun.”

That has been the goal since Day 1.

Lloyd previously had coached almost all of the players on his roster in flag football, tackle football or hockey. His familiarity with them — and their familiarity with each other — helped create a relaxed attitude among the players.

That’s carrying over into their stint as Canada’s representatives in Orlando.

“As a team, we’ve tried to keep it really loose,” Lloyd says. “The expectations are that you put your best effort forward and you represent yourself as well as you possibly can, but there’s no pressure to win for us.

“The pressure for us was at the regional tournament, honestly. We were playing a bunch of teams who knew us and we knew them. There were some rivalries and so the pressure was local. We thought, ‘If we get out of regionals, we’re sailing. Everything after this is a bonus and we’re just having fun.’ The kids have bought into that and have kept it pretty loose.”

The players, their coaches and the family members who are heading to Florida will try to follow that mantra.

Aside from the tournament, the trip is to feature a question-and-answer session Thursday with NFL players — the pros are supposed to ask the kids questions — and a visit to Walt Disney World on Friday. The flag football games are set for Saturday and the Pro Bowl is slated for Sunday.

“It’s going to be fun to see the NFL all-stars for all these guys (on Team Saskatchewan) who like the NFL,” says Clive, a self-professed supporter of the CFL and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. “For me, I’m not too big of a fan of the NFL, but I’ll go and enjoy (the Pro Bowl) with my teammates.”

The bonds that have been created among the players are perhaps the best thing Lloyd takes from Team Saskatchewan’s run to the Pro Bowl.

While many of the kids have played together before or know each other from school, the flag football experience has brought them closer together.

“When we started practices, it was really quiet,” Lloyd says. “You had the two or three kids who knew each other pretty well hanging out together, the two girls hanging out together and the other guys who didn’t really know everybody else were really quiet. That’s totally different now. Now they know everything about each other.

“They’re all Snapchatting each other. Over Christmas, they were going to different people’s houses and hanging out and becoming friends outside of sport. Ultimately, that’s what we’re trying to accomplish, right?”