Fast, Football, Festivals, Free, and Fantastic
Longboarders are going to have to be brave to tackle the race through our river valley. Yikes!
As for our headline…when the alliteration shoe fits…
This weekend sees the end of another year of fringing. But, fret not, the 29th Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival lives on in our hearts.
Oh, and in these holdover plays.
Hope this smoke clears out because there are a few outdoor movies this weekend. Finding Nemo (another F!) is playing tonight at the Valley Zoo. (Oops! It was last night. Thanks for the heads up, Mike.)
Movies on the Square is back too, with Diary of a Wimpy Kid tonight, and Fantastic Mr. Fox Saturday night. Stony Plain has an outdoor movie too.
It’s Free Cookie Friday at Luzarra. Get over to Whyte Avenue and buy a coffee so you can get a cookie. That caffeine and sugar will only help you start the weekend better.
The tune-ups are done and the Prairie Football Conference is into the real stuff this weekend. The second-best team in the country, the Edmonton Wildcats, begin their season home to the Regina Thunder. Sunday at Clarke Park (beside Commonwealth Stadium).
The winless Edmonton Huskies also begin the regular season this weekend. They’ll take anything they can get after going 0-8 last season. They host the Calgary Colts Saturday night at Clarke.
This is actually quite a decent level of football if you can’t bear to watch the Eskimos embarrass themselves anymore. Tickets are also reasonably priced.
Another non-Eskimos option is the Edmonton Capitals. Tonight’s game is also chock full of diabetes info, courtesy of the Canadian Diabetes Association. (The Capitals are ALSO showing a movie outside, after their Saturday game. It’s The Rookie.)
DEDfest is back to scare the crap out of you, and generally make you squirm.
DEDfest may get you thinking about Hallowe’en, which may get you thinking about fall, which may get you thinking about farmers harvesting their crops, which leads me to mention the Corn Maze is open.
Let’s dip into the ShareEdmonton calendar for some fun.
Clearer air would also help the participants in the Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival, happening at Louise McKinney Park.
As mentioned earlier this week, Saturday is the Canadian Derby at Northlands. It’ll be all fancy hats, fast horses and…bikini girls…
Hawrelak Park’s got the blues. Dun, dun, dun da, dun…The Edmonton’s Labatt Blues Festival…Dun, dun, dun da, dun…
Don’t forget you can always seek shelter from the smoke in a nice, cool movie theatre. Gregg can tell you what’s likely worth your money.
And on Monday, we’ll be celebrating our first year alongside another one-year-old, The Unknown Studio. Come on out to Wunderbar, throw us a toonie, enjoy some fine beer, and hear life-affirming passages from celebrity autobiographies. Party pants not required.
—–
While messing up the Finding Nemo showtime I also forgot to mention The ARTery’s kick-ass weekend. The Get Down is playing Friday night (there’s still time, it’s still good) and Saturday is an artists’ garage sale/pancake breakfast/bbq/block party. Told you it was kick-ass.
The Fringiest Events
Of course it’s the Fringe!
The 29th annual Edmonton International Fringe Festival is all the arts pages will be talking about for the next week. There’s also lots of stuff happening around Old Strathcona that doesn’t take place in a theatre or on a stage. This is the big one, Edmonton.
Morgan had a good point, don’t just try to see the 5-star shows. Ask people what’s good, what’s interesting, what they think you might like. You can always poke around Twitter, and try #yegfringe, for just such questions and inquiries.
Hawrelak Park is busy again this weekend, with the Celtic Festival. BluesFest is next weekend (in Hawrelak Park)…so get warmed up at Rusty Reed’s with Dave Babcock and the Night Keepers
EastwoodFest is Saturday, in the Eastwood neighbourhood. (118 Avenue, 85-87 Streets.)
Churchill Square, which the City has been trying to fill with more events and happenings, in between festivals, has the Latin Festival this weekend. Cha-cha-cha.
There’s Tomoto Fare too. That’s about tomatoes.
West of the city, it’s the Stony Plain Cowboy Gathering Society get-together. You can expect cowboy art, culture, poetry, and music.
Lots of new movies are out this weekend, like Eat, Pray, Love and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Gregg’s got your lowdown.
In music…N.N. plays an EP release show at the Starlite Room tonight, with Van Gohost and I.E.D. Sunday night at the Starlite Room it’s Fran Healy from Travis.
Falklands are at Wunderbar Friday night.
The Black Dog has some Hair of the Dog Saturday afternoon.
Over at Lyve on Whyte, Friday is Soul Train (with Crowded City Skyline and Hot Hand Phenomenon), Saturday it’s Rocky Mountain Rebel Music (with Brash Tax and The Party Martyrs).
Eddie Shorts has The Frolics Friday and Gaye Delorme Saturday.
Cirque du Soleil is in Edmonton, with Alegria.
In sports…The Prairie Football Conference (PFC) kicks off this weekend. 
Edmonton’s got two teams in that league. The Edmonton Wildcats are coming off a season in which they were western champs, and fell in the Canadian junior football championship. The Edmonton Huskies stunk it up last year, winning no games, and are looking for redemption in 2010. Those games are Saturday and Sunday, at Clarke Park.
From ShareEdmonton: FC Edmonton is hosting the Spokane Spiders (that means we could see Edmonton on all the Spokane affiliates! I hope Ana Cabrera talks about Edmonton.)
Whew!
An Edmonton football star
We talked about prairie football a lot last summer and fall. Edmonton had one really good team and one really bad team. Right now, we’ll talk about the really good team.
Make us proud, Jerit. (Photo: Edmonton Wildcats)
The Edmonton Wildcats played for the national junior football title in the fall, but didn’t come home with the crown.
The season done, there’s one Wildcat still playing.
Receiver (and Prairie Football Conference and Canadian rookie of the year) Jerit Lambert is going to play for the World Team of America. He’ll be joined by two other Canadian Junior Football League stars (Ottawa Sooners punter Tyler Crapigna and St. Leonard Cougars defensive back Mike Dubuisson). There are 31 of Canada’s best under-20 footballers on the team.
That team will face USA Football‘s junior squad as part of the NFL’s Pro Bowl festivities January 30th. The game is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but you can watch it on the NFL Network, 10am our time. (Check your local listings or call your cable/satellite provider.)
Lambert had a good year, making 28 catches for 457 yards and 5 touchdowns. He also returned kicks 550 yards, with one kickoff run back for a touchdown and one punt taken in for a score.
The International Federation of American Football (IFAF) had 100 players to choose from, so Lambert certainly must have impressed. The Team World roster will have 43 players from eight countries and four continents.
Go for the Intergold
We’ve tried to keep up with the Prairie Football Conference (PFC) as best we can this season. The one thing to know is that Edmonton has one good team and one bad one. The Huskies didn’t win once. The Edmonton Wildcats, however, are the prairie champions.
This weekend the Wildcats take on the Ontario champs, the Ottawa Sooners. The winner of this “Intergold Cup” game will take on the winner of the B.C. Football Conference for the national title.
The ‘cats have won 3 national championships, and were last playing for the big win in 2006. It’s been a lot longer since they brought home the Canadian title though. That last one came in 1983, against the Ottawa Sooners. (Could that be a good sign of at least an Intergold win?)
The Wildcats went 6-2 in the regular season, outscoring opponents 324-163 (though, they just shellacked the Huskies). In the playoffs they beat the Calgary Colts here in Edmonton, then went Saskatoon to beat the Hilltops for the Prairie title.
They’ve got some of the best receivers in the country, and the PFC rookie of the year, Jerit Lambert, is one of them.
Ottawa’s got a solid defense, allowing the second-fewest points in the nation, and will be tougher to put points up against, so it could be quite the battle on the field.
Your 2009 Edmonton Wildcats.
Wildcats win!
Remember the other day, when I was talking about playoff football in Edmonton?
Well…the Edmonton Wildcats used their wily defence to claim victory over the Calgary Colts. Linebacker Matt Lalande set a PFC record with two, count ‘em two, interceptions run in for touchdowns.
That means Edmonton, second-best after the regular season, will face the top team in the Prairie Football Conference.
Watch for an Edmonton-Saskatoon Hilltops showdown next weekend (in Saskatchewan) for Prairie supremecacy.
A win next weekend means a chance at the national title.
Football Frenzy
(Image: EFCL.org)
There’s so much football this weekend, this post can barely contain the action and excitement.
You’ve got the Eskimos home to the Lions tonight in a CFL matchup that is made more important by the Eskimos’ recent losses.
Don’t forget that you still have a little bit of time to buy really cheap tickets through the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, if you’re a member of your community league or you become one in the next two hours.
Don’t think, just do it!
(Image: PFCfootball.com)
Sunday, over at Clarke Park, the Edmonton Wildcats host the Calgary Colts in a Prairie Football Conference semi-final. That’s right, playoff football!
The Wildcats finished the PFC season in second, and seem to always face the Colts in the playoffs. That game goes at 1pm.
Whew. It’s almost lucky the University of Alberta Golden Bears aren’t playing football this weekend. (But U of A teams are active in plenty of other sports.)
…But what if the Wildcats win and end up hosting the championship, while the Bears are home next weekend…Hmm, keep the woolies at the ready.
Huck it, chuck it, football!
Those poor, poor, Huskies.
They didn’t win a game all season. Thankfully, for Edmonton, the Wildcats did alright and will be in the Prairie Football Conference (PFC) playoffs.
The Huskies even had a chance to win their one game of the season at home, against their Edmonton rivals. Instead, the Huskies got thumped (again) 46-7. There’s always next year.
While the Huskies will be waiting for next summer after losing all eight games, the Wildcats take second place in the PFC with a record of six wins and two losses. They’ll be hosting a battle of Alberta this coming weekend (Sunday, October 11) as the Calgary Colts come up the highway for a semi-final showdown.
The other playoff game sees a battle of Saskatchewan with the Saskatoon Hilltops and Regina Thunder squaring off. Regina was the top team in the league, going 7-1 for 14 points.
After that it’s the league championship (October 18), and the Prairie winner then heads to the national junior football playoffs.
Get out to Clarke Park this weekend and cheer on your Edmonton Wildcats!
Are you ready for (some) football?
Edmonton Eskimos aside, there’s other football going on.
Seriously.
On Friday, the University of Alberta Golden Bears beat Simon Fraser Clan 28-16. Not bad against the top offence in the Canadian University football. It’s also not a bad way to get win #1 on the season. Saskatchewan comes to town this Friday.
(While we’re talking about the U of A, here’s how all the Bears and Pandas did this weekend.)
There was also some Prairie Football going on at Clarke Park. (My inability to read a schedule means this wasn’t a one month league…)
You know when sports guys say a game was over before it began? (Usually meaning one team is nowhere near as good as the other.) That really was the case between the Edmonton Wildcats and Edmonton Huskies.
We could sit around and pick this game apart, but I’m simply going to say the Wildcats won 72-0. I think that sums things up.
The loss leave the Huskies in last place in the Prairie Football Conference. They’re starting to give me that Detroit Lions feeling…
Both Edmonton teams are on the road this week. The Huskies look for their first win against Saskatoon, the best team in the league (*gulp*), while the Wildcats roll their momentum into Regina. The two Edmonton teams will then finish the season facing each other at Clarke Park, October 3.
High-scoring side notes from the PFC: Scoring 35 points in the first quarter has been done three times in Canadian Junior Football history…This is the second-best shutout for the ‘Cats, since they won a 2003 game 79-0…83-0 is the largest margin of victory in Canadian Junior Football…
How ’bout them Wildcats?
The CJFL. For Canadian Junior Football.
The Edmonton Wildcats aren’t messing around this short Prairie Football season.
After an opening weekend win over Calgary, the Wildcats went into Winnipeg and thumped the Rifles 60-22, Saturday. Nice going boys. That means the Wildcats have two wins, no losses (2-0) and sit tied for first place in the Prairie Football Conference (PFC) with the Regina Thunder.
As for Edmonton’s other PFC team, the Huskies, they did not fare so well. They lost again.
It wasn’t as bad as last week’s drubbing, but the Huskies had the unfortunate position of playing a Calgary Colts team looking to avenge a loss in Edmonton. It didn’t matter if it was to the other Edmonton team. The Colts beat the Huskies 36-21. The Huskies sit at the bottom of the PFC, tied at 0-2 with the aforementioned Winnipeg team.
This coming weekend (August 22, 23) both Edmonton teams are home at Clarke Park. On Saturday, the Wildcats look to continue winning against the Saskatoon Hilltops (1-1). On Sunday, the Huskies look for a win against their scoreless brothers from Winnipeg.
Are you ready for some (Prairie) Football?
In the end, the Thunder rolled.
I know you can easily get distracted when the big team is on the TV, but there’s other football ’round these parts. And the Golden Bears aren’t even back at school.
But this was also opening weekend of the Prairie Football Conference (PFC). A conference of football in which Edmonton has not one, but two teams. We’ve got the Huskies. And we have the Wildcats.
The PFC has four weekends of smash-mouth football. With 6 teams in the league there’s not a lot of room to mess around.
It also means you get one more regular season game from the Wildcats and Huskies over at Clarke Park.
As for this past weekend, the Wildcats beat the Colts of Calgary 35-21.
The Huskies, umm, played the Regina Thunder.
They lost. 51-11.
The extra point is good! Sadly, the rest of the points went to the other guys.
But we don’t have to talk about that. I mean, we can talk about the Eskimos if we want to talk about weekend lossses. Am I right? (This is where I pull my collar nervously.) We can just talk about how there’s great football for $10 (kids under 12 are free).
Next home games are August 22 (Wildcats) and August 23 (Huskies).
As an aside, writing this has me thinking about who would win a fight between a wildcat and a huskie. I couldn’t find that on the Internet (yet?) but here’s a fight between a taco and a grilled cheese sandwich.
Get him. The guy with the ball!
