Running back Roberts MVP at Indigenous Cup
Team Manitoba was up against top Indigenous football talent from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Northwestern Ontario, with the tournament hosted at St. Vital Mustangs Field in Winnipeg.
With a 34-26 victory on Sunday, Manitoba capped off an undefeated tournament, and you wouldn't know Roberts was one of the more inexperienced players from his performance. He carried the ball 30 times for 296 yards, had two catches for 19 yards, and scored two touchdowns — all in just two games.
WILL SPREITZER PHOTO
Team Manitoba running back Colton Roberts (left) was named the U18 Indigenous Cup tournament MVP on Sunday. The Grace 11 student who plays for the Vincent Massey Trojans carried the ball 30 times for 296 yards, had two catches for 19 yards, and scored two touchdowns in the tourney.
'I've been putting in the work, trying to get better and stuff like that,' said Roberts, who also acknowledged the strong offensive line as a big part of his success. 'It all just ended up working out.'
Roberts, who is Métis, just finished his Grade 11 year at Vincent Massey, and started playing football on his high school team only last year. He heard about the U18 Indigenous team through his head coach, and along with around 50 other players from various clubs, schools and programs across the province, he tried out and became one of the 27 selected to represent the province.
U18 Team Manitoba head coach Russell Wallace says the team wouldn't be where they were without Roberts.
'Right from day one, we watched him, and we said, 'Oh this is going to be a very special player for us, and he's going to really help us,'' said Wallace. 'And throughout the tournament, throughout the practices, he was very consistent and you could see him getting better each day.'
Surrounding Roberts was a team with a bond that was very special according to Wallace, something that helped them get over the hump and take gold in only the second year Team Manitoba has participated in the Indigenous Cup, which originally started as a tournament between Alberta and Saskatchewan.
'When we bring these high-performance teams or these football Manitoba teams together, you always have one passion, which is football, right?' said Wallace. 'But I think, for us, there's the fact that we're all Indigenous and we're all part of that culture. It just gives us kind of that other connection to each other.'
Along with two weeks of grinding practices and building team chemistry, Wallace says the group took time to have conversations about their Indigenous culture, talking about their perspectives, backgrounds and reconciliation.
'I think it's important to have those conversations as part of the Indigenous team,' said Roberts. 'We had a ceremony before one of the games, our first game, where we ran out holding flags and they did their drumming and stuff like that. And yeah, I think we all learned a lot from that.'
With half the team being new this year, Wallace says the leadership of the veteran players and even some of the newcomers stood out, along with the motivation of playing in front of a home crowd.
'That was kind of our key,' said Wallace. 'Leadership of the new players, but as well as our returning players to help kind of get us over that second place hump, to get us into that gold medal.'
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'In Manitoba, we have a (large) population and we have a very proud Indigenous community, so to be able to host it here in Manitoba was very special to our players and it gave us a little bit more motivation,' he said.
For Roberts, he plans to try out again next year as Manitoba will look to go back-to-back.
'It was very special to see the bond that's created between these players that normally wouldn't have that opportunity to play against each other,' said Wallace. 'So to see that come together, it was very special for me as someone who's Indigenous as well as someone who's a football coach.'
The U16 Western Championships also took place simultaneously over the weekend in Winnipeg, where Saskatchewan came away with the win. Manitoba defeated British Columbia in the bronze medal game, capturing their first medal in seven years.
zoe.pierce@freepress.mb.ca
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