Under the Monday night lights

Winnipeg Free Press

2 days ago

The Springfield Collegiate Sabres are wasting no time kicking off their 2025 football season next week.
As soon as the clock strikes midnight on Monday, Aug. 18, the Sabres — a high school team from Oakbank competing in the Winnipeg High School Football League — will take to the field for their first practice of the year under the lights of the Oakbank Community Centre.
The unique tradition, known as midnight practice, was introduced to the team by head coach Tom Walls back in 2022.
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This will be the fourth season the Springfield Collegiate Sabres kick off the high school football season with a midnight practice. The tradition was introduced by head coach Tom Walls back in 2022.
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This will be the fourth season the Springfield Collegiate Sabres kick off the high school football season with a midnight practice. The tradition was introduced by head coach Tom Walls back in 2022.
'Football is a difficult sport,' said Walls. 'Not everybody gets to touch the ball. There's a whole lot of sacrifice that goes into it. So if you're going to run a program that attracts kids to do things that are inherently uncomfortable, you have to do things that are different or keep it relevant every year, and every year we try to do something brand new and different. And this year was the year to bring back the midnight practice again.'
The concept originated in American college basketball, where teams would open their season with a midnight practice on the earliest day the NCAA allowed training to start. Midnight practices or 'Midnight Madness' has since spread to other sports and grown into a major community event for the teams that participate.
Walls says there is excitement about coming out in the middle of the night to practice in an unconventional way. However, organizing an event so late has its challenges and can sometimes be inconvenient, with parents driving out late, some coaches pulling all-nighters, and making sure the surrounding community is not being disrupted.
'Because it's hard, it helps make the process of playing on this team more meaningful,' said Walls. 'And the kids don't always realize it at the moment, but the more you are willing to sacrifice for something, the more meaningful that thing will become to you.'
'Oakbank is a small town. (Springfield Collegiate) is a very small school… you start creating experiences that these boys will remember when they're old men, including having a professional player come out at midnight and work with them.'– Sabres head coach Tom Walls
Fans, families, alumni and local supporters are invited to attend and cheer on the team as they celebrate the beginning of the season for the Sabres football squad, who will also be joined by special guest coach Brandon Alexander of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
'It adds another expertise in another layer of — I'm going to say specialness — to their experience of playing football here,' said Walls. 'Oakbank is a small town. (Springfield Collegiate) is a very small school. That actually has been our strength over the years because we have a group of kids and we have a group of adults who genuinely like being around each other. And when you do that, you start creating experiences that these boys will remember when they're old men, including having a professional player come out at midnight and work with them.'
Alexander, a veteran defensive back with the Bombers, will be present to coach, mentor and share insights with the Sabres about the mindset and work ethic needed at the professional level.
NICK IWANYSHYN / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
Winnipeg Blue Bombers guest coach Brandon Alexander will be the special guest at this year's Springfield Sabres' midnight practice.
NICK IWANYSHYN / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES
Winnipeg Blue Bombers guest coach Brandon Alexander will be the special guest at this year's Springfield Sabres' midnight practice.
'Aside from the surface things, which would be becoming better at their game, I would like them to see the example of people who love the sport and are willing to be inconvenienced to teach the sport,' said Walls on what he wants his team to learn from Alexander.
The Springfield Collegiate football team is relatively new, having launched in 2019 under Walls' coaching, and has since grown to 47 players on the roster from a school of just 560 students.
The team is coming off their most successful season yet in the top division of the WHSFL, despite a loss to a strong St. Paul's High School team in the playoffs.
Along with regular practices, the team holds character and leadership Zoom calls every week to help develop players beyond the game. They also give back through year-round community service, running food drives, item drives for Ukrainian newcomers and those displaced by wildfires, organizing litter cleanups, and volunteering to clean the local fire hall.
'Kids today won't tell you this, but more now than ever, they want to belong to something bigger than just playing video games in a basement.'– Tom Walls
'The feedback that we get from teams like the (Winnipeg) Rifles or the East Side Eagles major teams, or even now the University of Manitoba, is they say the kids that come out of Oakbank are wonderfully coachable and very good citizens,' said Walls. 'Some of them are good football players, but those other two things — being coachable and being a good citizen — that's kind of the goal of the program, aside from just being able to block and tackle.'
'The work that we're doing is creating something that kids today want to be a part of. Kids today won't tell you this, but more now than ever, they want to belong to something bigger than just playing video games in a basement.'
The midnight practice will kick off what the Sabres aim to be another strong year, starting in the dark in August and ending hopefully with the shine of a trophy at the high school football finals in November.
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