Vikings rise out of the ashes of near extinction

BY MICHAEL PIASETZKI

Every once in a while a heartwarming story of inspiration comes down the West Island amateur sports pike, with the most recent scripted in Ile Bizard.

The team in question is the Montreal Metro Football League bantam AAA second-division Ile Bizard Vikings, a squad that as recently as last spring, looked headed for extinction. Coming off a poor season, only 11 players had registered to play, with three of its best having bolted to the North Shore Lions. Through a lot of networking and sheer determination though, another 30 — 18 of whom had no prior football experience — were recruited to play. However, just as the numbers problem seemed to be solved, another potential disastrous one arose. A week before the start of the regular season, no less than four of head coach Stéphane Roy’s assistants suddenly departed for higher-level positions, leaving him with no option but to once again consider shutting down the program.

In a last-minute effort of pure desperation, Vikings team manager Kim Jepson called Montreal radio personality Ted Bird of CHOM FM, a friend of hers, asking him to send out an SOS on the air to see if any coaches would volunteer to save the team. Three days later, former CEGEP AAA Vanier Cheetahs assistant coach Wesley Burgess called Roy, offering his services along with three of his friends. Meanwhile, former Canadian Football League player and assistant coach Jeff Fairholm also moved up from the atom level to lend a hand. The program was saved. “It was like a phoenix rising out of the ashes,” said Jepson. “It was really unbelievable.”

What has been even more unbelievable is how Roy, Burgess, Fairholm and the other coaches have managed to take a team whose defence featured only one second-year player, Hugo Belanger-Paquet, and an offence built around a quarterback, Jean-Sébastien Plouffe, who was a fullback last year, and mold it into a cohesive unit that has had a winning season. Heading into the Thanksgiving Day game against the Laval East Broncos, the Vikings record stood at 5-2-1 with one game left to play, this Sunday at Eugene Dostie Park in Ile Bizard against those same Broncos. “There are a lot of good natural athletes on this team,” said Roy. “Many of the rookies came from double-letter hockey, and adapted quickly.”

For Vikings offensive co-ordinator Burgess, coaching so many raw rookies has been a very different experience. “I love this team,” said Burgess. “To teach them and help develop their skills, to watch some go on to perhaps play midget AAA for the Mustangs, will make it all worth it.”