sept 23 - sept 28, 2021
sports
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Fall football and the RMF
The Carillon talks minor football and gives an outline of games for those who want to follow
victoria baht sports writer
The fall season is around the corner – some may say it is already here. Normally when we think of fall, we think of the leaves turning yellow and brown, the sunset coming sooner in the day, the crisp air in the morning and evening, and pumpkin spice everything. But the most exciting one of them all is the football season! Two weeks ago, on September 9, the National Football League (NFL) began their season. Today, we are going to talk about the game of football and teach you what football really is, and we are going to talk about a league/organization that operates in Regina – Regina Minor Football (RMF). We are going to be talking about American football, which means that there are tackles, field goals, and touch downs – not the European football (our soccer) where there are slide tackles, goalies, and goals. The football that we are talking about today is the football that uses the CFL rules, just for younger age groups. A game of football consists of four 15-minute quarters. The goal of the game is to reach ten yards before getting tackled down, or
going out of bounds. Players can reach those ten yards by running with the ball, throwing the ball, and passing off the ball to another teammate. If a team doesn’t make it that ten yards, they have two more chances, and on the last chance they can choose to run again or kick the ball to the other team. If a team does make the ten yards successfully, they keep run-
ning until the player with the ball is down or out of field. Once they reach that goal, the team keeps aiming for ten yards until they get to the end zone. Once a team brings the ball to the end zone, they are awarded a touchdown, and in a touchdown a team can shoot for a field goal or a safety. Now, these are the rules that the Regina Minor Football
League follows. This league works out to have five groups of players: the Mighty Mites (under 10), Atom (under 12), Peewee (under 14), Bantom (under 16) and the Victorias (all girls team). If you haven’t noticed, the teams go until the age of 16, which means that kids can no longer play in the league after about grade 10. This way, the league gets them ready
Marco Verch via Flickr
The most skin you’ll ever see in the Carillon.
for high school teams and games. Once they are in grade 10, they can try out for high school teams with more experience. This also allows the grade nines to have that additional year, if they choose, before going up against the bigger players in grade 12. The RMF league normally runs their games on the weekends. That means if you want to take your little ones over to go and see a game to see if they want to play, you can do that! Or you can do it for yourself before asking them, to avoid the fear of your kid getting crushed to pieces. It will be okay – football is a team sport, and they have pads to protect your kids as much as possible in a full-contact sport. Let’s say you go and watch a game, and your kid really wants to join. Sadly, the fall season has already started, but there is a spring league! This league runs from mid-April to mid-May, so you still have time to get your kids excited and pumped for spring season. It’s fall, which means you can still take them out to go play catch, run some drills, get them ready for the season – and get yourself in the fall spirit!
Activities for the introvert: geocaching Have no fear, geocaching is here gillian massie staff writer Looking for something contactless to do this fall? Don’t like people? Like being outside? Well, if you answered yes to any of the above, geocaching is the answer for you, my friend. Think about all the scavenger hunts you went on as a kid – some could have been during Easter, or some could have been set up at birthday parties. Geocaching takes this to the next level. It takes scavenger hunts global by using a GPS system where you have to seek out each of the cache stations. Unlike the scavenger hunts you went on as a kid, geocaching is a give-and-take prize event.
When you find each of the stations, you have to take what is in the container and then put something of yours in to replace it. The beauty of geocaching is that even if you are studying remotely this semester, there are geocaches all over, so you can still participate even if you are not on campus. All you have to do is download the Geocaching app, lace up your shoes, and get tracking. Geocaching breaks down into a few simple rules: when you find the geocache, don’t re-hide it in a different location – others will not be able to find it! Take the item within the container and leave another one, then sign the guest book and put everything back into the container, making
sure it is hidden but not buried. These rules are set in place to so that geocaching goes smoothly for others – so that fellow geocachers don’t travel all the way to the location to find nothing. Finding caches depends on a couple of different values; terrain, which means how complex the landscape is to get to the container; and difficulty, which is how easy it is to find the cache. Some caches can be tricky, such as multicaches or puzzle caches which rely on doing more steps for one go. Geocaching shouldn’t be all about finding extravagant treasures – but it is exciting when you find something that is really cool. I have seen different items such as buttons and stickers on the small-
er scale, all the way to larger-scale items such as Pez dispensers to small strings of Christmas lights. Try to steer clear of things that are just garbage – nobody wants your Starbucks coffee lid – leave something small such as a poker chip or a hair clip. In order to geocache, you do not need to break the bank to get your cache items. Look no further than Dollarama or Walmart for small items that you think would be good to receive. If you want to create your own geocache station, you can become a volunteer by registering on the Geocaching app. It is recommended that you find 20 different geocaches before you plant your own station, just to get a feel for proper placement and
good hiding locations. After that, you need to find out the proper GPS locations and put them close enough to monitor the location regularly. For more information, head to the Geocaching website, where you can find more information under the heading “Geocache Container.” The University of Regina has piloted an intermural “geocaching” challenge from January to February and March to April, which has proven successful. The third challenge attempt will go from October 4 to November 15, where individuals can compete and be entered into a draw to win different prizes.
The peoples’ pocket-sized pastime.
Martin Lostak via Unsplash
