With the sun gleaming off the gold medal around his neck, Daniel Nikiforuk was brimming with satisfaction after Team Alberta’s football championship at the U16 Western Canadian Challenge in Winnipeg.
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“It feels really good,” said the 15-year-old Nikiforuk, sporting his No. 1 Alberta jersey and sitting outside his high school, Holy Rosary, in Lloydminster.
“I’m really happy that our team got really close together and were able to beat Saskatchewan for the first time since 2018.”
Alberta defeated Saskatchewan 34-8 in the final, three days after blanking host Manitoba 46-0.
“I thought we did really well, and we beat teams by quite a bit of points,” said Nikiforuk, a receiver.
Off the field, the Albertans developed chemistry while bunking together at the University of Manitoba campus during the tournament and at their Edmonton hotel for training sessions before flying to Winnipeg.
“We came together by sleeping in the same rooms at the hotel,” Nikiforuk said. “Our coaches told us to figure out a few things to learn about other people. Just really hanging out with different other guys, instead of just the same guys and your teammates from the same school.”
At the same time, Nikiforuk and fellow Holy Rosary student Cobi Payne appreciated each other’s presence as Alberta teammates. They’ve played football together for more than five years, going back to their peewee days.
Beginning with tryouts this spring in Red Deer, both Border City boys made the U16 provincial team in their final year of eligibility for that level.
“I tried out last year and I didn’t make it, so I knew much about (the program and process),” Nikiforuk said. “It was my goal to make this team, and I did, so I was really happy about it.
“I think the experience has developed me really well. I’ve gained a lot more knowledge and skills for the game.
“I worked on my depths of routes, worked on my cuts, and I kept working on my catching, my jump ball, and all those things.”
While residing on the University of Manitoba campus, Western Challenge participants roomed with other players, and some even had their own rooms.
“I got my own room,” Nikiforuk reported. “It was really nice.
“We ate at a cafeteria. We had time periods for meetings. We had a meeting room and all that. We had times when we had to be in our rooms. We had times when we could go out around the U of M.”
Nikiforuk also enjoyed strong support in Winnipeg.
“I had my mom and my dad, and I had my brother and my grandma and my dog,” he said with a smile.
Going into Grade 10, the five-foot-10, 150-pound Nikiforuk has been training this summer in preparation for his first season of senior high school football with the Holy Rosary Raiders. He’s graduating from the provincial Tier 3 bantam champion Junior Raiders to the perennial Alberta 3A high school champion Raiders.
“It’s more work,” he said. “It’s the same (football pipeline), but I think it’s going to be a lot more because it’s a new team and new teammates. It’s going into high school, so it matters a lot, and you could get coaches (from junior clubs and university teams) looking at you.
“I’ve actually been training quite a bit over the summer, working and stuff like that.”
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