Caronport Cougar fans can dust off their noisemakers. After a one year hiatus, the longtime fall tradition of Caronport High School football is back.

CHS enrolment shut down the football program last year, but football players can suit up again thanks to a new arrangement: this year’s team will have six men instead of nine for the first time since the early 1970s.

“It felt like it was something we were missing,” says Shane Sowden, Caronport High School’s athletic director. He also says that taking a break was “the right thing to do” last year, but that it was “never meant to be permanent. Football is an important part of the experience here.”

Coach Ken Guenter agrees. “Life without football is not life at all,” he says with a smile. “Boys need football. It’s impossible to imagine how significant this is for them.”

Thanks to some work on Guenter’s part, this year’s team can look forward to new dressing facilities. Their old dressing room was located in the school’s old hockey arena, which is scheduled for demolition this month. Players had to shower and wash their uniforms in a different building.

The new facility, with space for 25 players, is located in the gymnasium, giving players direct access to washrooms and laundry facilities. Guenter and an old friend and football fan, Ken Moore, spent several weeks this summer building and setting up the new dressing and equipment rooms.

The Caronport Cougars play in Conference Number Three of Saskatchewan’s Six Man Football League. They’ll play seven season games, and playoffs will begin in November. Tryouts will coincide with the beginning of classes at the end of August and will be open to boys in grades nine through 12.