Bowl Swap - Widdfield to play in Northern Bowl

The Widdifield Wildcats huddle around a propane heater at practice Tuesday afternoon. Now the NDA champs will have to warm up to a new Bowl game opponent. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The Widdifield Wildcats will be playing in the Northern Bowl Saturday afternoon against Hammarskjold from Thunder Bay instead of the Central Bowl versus Eastview of Barrie.

Widdifield Wildcats head coach Sean Mullan found out the news during an OFSAA conference call Tuesday morning between the four team's playing in both the Central and Northern Bowl's this Saturday.

St. Mary's was upset because the NOSSA Champions who defeated Widdifield 35-14 in the championship game, were looking to become the first ever four-time Central Bowl champions and they wanted this year's bowl schedule reversed.

"St. Mary's biggest complaint was that proper protocol wasn't followed it says right in the OFSAA constitution," said Mullan during practice Tuesday afternoon about the short notice both schools had about the Bowl game designation for each team.

"So black or white issue the Soo is absolutely right from what I could tell."

Mullan says the St. Mary’s Knights even had legal aid in their backfield during the conference call.

“St. Mary’s was represented by their lawyer, all the other schools had their coaches,” Mullan said about the unusual conference call.

Now the Wildcats will have to rush and try and quickly prepare for their Thunder Bay opponent who they have no scouting tape of.

“I feel bad for the kids because we had spent the last 4 practices preparing for Barrie because we played them, we remembered what they had,” Mullan said about a Barrie team that beat them by a touchdown in exhibition play early in the season.

While the short notice is an issue, Mullan doesn’t feel insulted that his team is now playing in the Northern Bowl instead of the Central Bowl.

“The Soo got what they wanted and we are still playing at 1:30 p.m. so I’m not real upset about what happened,” Mullan said.

“As I maintained from the beginning we are just happy to be playing in a Bowl game it was Eastview now we are playing Hammarskjold from Thunder Bay.”