The Saskatoon Hilltops and the Saskatoon Valkyries are normally working against their rivals from Regina, the Thunder on the men’s side and the Riot on the women’s.
But the teams are working together, at least for the time being, joining forces to launch a monthly lottery called the Sask Football Mega 50/50.
The draw will be awarded from December to May to help with fundraising. However, it did take a little while to get approved.
“I believe right now, Sask Lotteries is just being inundated with a ton of different user groups trying to get lottery licences because of COVID and the pandemic,” said Hilltops president Chris Hengen-Braun.
“You know hopefully in a couple of months things start turning around and we can have more of our traditional type of fundraisers.”
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The teams normally get a lot of money every year from 50/50 draws at Saskatchewan Roughriders home games,
But with the CFL season cancelled this year, these teams wanted to create their own 50/50 lottery revenue because when the CFL does return, the teams may not have the same deal.
“They’ve told us, ‘hey, we didn’t play this year, this may not happen next year,'” said Brin Werrett of the Thunder.
“So we’ve been warned that we need enough funding for the next couple of years until things return back to normal with the CFL. And they have been big supporters of ours and we are trying to step up to the plate to replace that funding.”
Valkyries head coach Pat Barry hopes the draw continues into next year.
“We are very fortunate that they looked north here to Saskatoon to include the Hilltops and us into that lottery and we feel very fortunate to be part of this fundraiser,” Barry said.
The teams all working together is not something anyone could have imagined, but no one could have imagined 2020 would turn out the way it did either.
“I really have to give a lot of the credit to the Regina Thunder,” Hengen-Braun said. “They really spearheaded this whole initiative. The common theme is we are enemies on the field, but off the field, in times like these, we all really need to be working together with junior football across this wonderful province.”
For more information on how you can get tickets for the December and subsequent draws, go to saskfootballmega5050.ca
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