Spring has sprung and the flag is about to drop on another season of football in Prince George.
Gridiron lovers have spent the past few months practicing drills in the gym at Ecole Lac Des Bois, but the fifth season of flag football touches down April 30 in town with the Prince George Minor Football Association league play climaxing June 9-10 in Kelowna at the provincial championship.
Mike Johnson runs the free practices at the school every Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m., and Mondays starting April 16, and said flag football is becoming more popular.
"It's good exercise and fun," said Johnson. "When you hit the finals in Kelowna it's pure entertainment."
Teams can play up to 10 games on the weekend in Kelowna. The cost of joining a team is $100, but anyone can come out Mondays and Wednesday for free to try the sport out.
The Prince George league will offer boys teams for under-10, under-12, under-14 and under-16 this season and for the first time a girls under-14 team will play. Teams will consist of a minimum six players with five players on the field at a time.
Unlike the 110-yard regulation football field in flag football the dimensions are only 60 yards.
Ryan Bellamy, president of the B.C. community football association, said flag football is attracting both players and parents who are skittish about the contact in the tackle version. There's another benefit as well.
"The beauty of it being non-contact is you can have the different age groups playing against each other," said Bellamy.
He said another reason they went from 12-men to a five-man playing field is so more smaller communities in the north can play and compete against the bigger centres down south at the Kelowna tournament.
