Feb 26, 2011 by Iain Colpitts Mississauga News
Mackenzie Dodd pushes through to the end zone Saturday morning at the Rink City Sportplex during the peewee finals between the white and purple teams of the Mississauga Indoor Football Association. – Photo by Steven Der-Garabedian
Mission accomplished.
Liston Bates wanted to promote indoor football in a fun, non-competitive way and he did just that through the Mississauga Indoor Football Association.
The league completed their final week of youth games today at Rink City and Bates, the league’s coordinator, was thrilled to see participation almost triple in size from 50 children in the inaugural season last year to 140 this campaign.
“It’s more successful than I could ever imagine,” he said. “I’ve never seen so many happy kids playing football indoors. The program itself is great. If we can have a bigger location, I imagine we’ll double (participation) next year.”
In the the sixth and final week of games, the junior gold team defeated junior blue 38-13, junior white defeated junior silver 27-12, peewee purple edged peewee white 34-32, peewee black defeated peewee red by the same count and senior black won 32-6 over senior red.
As Bates mentioned, the league’s mandate is to get kids active and to have fun. He said he’s received a lot of positive feedback from parents this year.
“The parents appreciate it a lot more because they’re up front and personal with their kids,” he said. “They get to see their development first hand.”
For more information, visit www.leaguelineup.com/mifa.