The Bears played their first football game of the season against the Rocky Rebels last Saturday in Rocky Mountain House and were victorious in a score of 44-0.

This is a great start for the Bears as they have expectations to live up to having been the provincial and league champions last year.

Head coach Garnet Rambaut said the team expects to win because they both practice and play to win, while at the same time remaining aware of the fact they can be beat.

“It’s the kind of thing where you can never be 100 per cent sure that you’re going to win every game but you certainly try to do that,” Rambaut said.

He added the Rockey Rebels team is an active working organization,  and they provided hot dogs and other things for the players after the game.

“We had success against them last year, we tied them in our only game against them and this year we thought we would do well against them and we did,” Rambaut said.

This first game and first win may pave the road to a successful season for the Bears, but Rambaut said they have to take it one game at a time, because at this point everybody has played only one game.

“You really can’t judge your performance against one team,” said Rambaut.

Next week the Bears play against the team they beat in the finals last year. Rambaut commented this could mean more opposition for the Bears simply because they were the league champions last year.

However, it is still the Bears goal to try to over any adversities and limit the opposing team’s opportunities to score.

“It’s our goal to try and prevail and we will practice to that end,” Rambaut said.

Rambaut is very proud of the team’s win and said that out of the 27 players, 16 of them are rookies with only 11 of them returning from last year.

He said the players are still expected to do their job on the field and play to their fullest potential, with the realistic mentality that some of the players are learning their positions for the first time.

Nevertheless, Rambaut said he is happy with their performance.

“We were very pleasantly surprised by a lot of our rookies,” Rambaut said. “They played their positions well.”

The team’s reaction to winning was pure excitement, but Rambaut added the players still have a lot more work to do with the coaches being on hand to help point out areas of growth for the young athletes.

“We’re able to point out some learning opportunities for all of them regardless of whether they are a rookie or a veteran,” Rambaut said.

The Bears have another five games to play for the regular season before the playoffs start.

Even though Rambaut said he is very pleased with his players effort he still said they can never be over confident as there is always somebody wanting to knock them off, something he is always sure to make his players are aware of.

“It’s not just what goes on at game time that matters,” Rambaut said. “We want to make sure they have a positive experience with football.”

reporter@sylvanlakenews.com