The Lethbridge Collegiate Institute football team brings its traveling road show to Oak Harbor this Friday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m.
LCI, a public high school of 1,000 students from Lethbridge, Alberta (742 miles from Oak Harbor), often travels to find competition, according to coach Glen Bowie.
The Rams have won seven provincial championships (equivalent to state titles) and Bowie said, “Most of the teams in our province will not play us because of how good we usually are. We usually play two to five games down in the states (each year).” LCI’s conference has just five teams, so the school has to find four or five nonleague games each season to fill its schedule, Bowie added.
In the past, LCI paired up with teams from Montana, Idaho, California, Utah, Oregon and Washington. This year they tangled with two teams from Hawaii.
Bowie said, “The reason we like to come down to the states is because the teams are better so it helps us get better. Most teams play to their competition so this really helps us up our game. Also it is fun to travel and play different teams. The trips are great for team building, also.”
This fall the Rams have defeated two Idaho opponents, Bonners Ferry and Kellogg, and dropped two games with Hilo and Kapa’a, Hawaii.
For the year, LCI is 6-3, also losing to defending provincial champion and rival Raymond.
Since the Rams play so many American teams, his club has little trouble adjusting to the U.S. rules, Bowie said.
In Canadian football, the field is larger, they use 12 players, they have only three downs, and forward motion is legal.
Bowie said he saw on the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association website that Oak Harbor was looking for a game. He said, “It sounded like fun and we needed a game.”
The trips are expensive and traveling to Oak Harbor will cost $7,000, Bowie said, but each student must pay a $350 fee to play and the team does fundraisers. He added, “We have a great parent group that helps us out and we have great alumni.”
This is not the first time Oak Harbor faced a Canadian opponent. The Wildcats hosted Vancouver College, a high school team from Vancouver, B.C., in the 1960s.
