ABSOLUTELY - and they do it well!! FSMFA is proud to have many girls participate at all levels and graduate from our minor football program.
Spring Flag season starts April 4 (depending on snow melt) and will run end of May. All levels will be practicing twice a week, Tuesday & Thursday, from 6:00-7:30pm. With approx. 4 weekends of games.
Spring camp for the fall season, for all levels will take place the 3-4 weeks following the Spring Season with Regular Season Practices beginning after the August long weekend. There are no team/association football games or practices allowed by Football Alberta during the month of July. Spring Camp is an added bonus to the program and is included with the Regular/Fall season registration.
Novice can expect 2 practices during the week (1-hour duration), Atom teams can expect 2 practices during the week (2-hour duration); Peewee and Bantam can expect 3 practices a week (2-hour duration) from August thru end of season.
Regular season games for Novice generally begin end of August or after September long weekend and for Atom/Peewee/Bantam games generally begin mid-end of August followed by approx 7 weeks of games. Playoff games will commence the 3rd week of October and Final CDMFA games will conclude around the middle of November.
Games are generally played on Saturdays and/or Sundays.
To the surprise of many, tackle football is ranked behind 4 other sports in Canada (and the U.S. too, for that matter) for injuries per event. Football is rated fifth in the number and severity of injuries incurred behind Soccer, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey. While Football has been rightly called a collision sport and serious injuries can occur during games and practices, they are truly rare. While on rare occasions ambulances are sometimes seen on the field, it is most often done as a precaution, and these occasions rarely involve a serious injury. That being said, hurts such as bumps and bruises as well as scrapes and cuts are common, everyday occurrences. Be prepared to ice their bruises and bandage their scrapes.
One of the reasons for the safety of the sport is the quality of the equipment. Our association spends a significant portion of our budgets each year on equipment that is of the utmost quality. This equipment includes NOCSAE certified helmets and a variety of other padding. The association owns their own equipment; unlike other sports, the parents are not required to shell out hundreds of dollars each year for equipment.
Associations playing under CDMFA are tiered into four divisions Tier I, Tier II, Tier III and Tier IV.
There are no weight classes for minor football in Alberta. Therefore, the decision to play rests with the child and the parent. Please do not ask for your child to play at a lower age class because he/she is small. This type of request will be denied. There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule. In general, and in all honesty, we have never seen the size of a player - whether large or small - to be an issue; both large and small players can play football, and can play it very well. Football truly has a position for everyone.