Football Manitoba rounds out high performance rosters

There will certainly be a Steinbach Regional Sabres flavour to the Manitoba U18 High Performance Football team’s offensive line this year.

The team, which is set to head to Nationals later this month, features four Eastman players and will be coached by Stephen Fedus, the leader of Steinbach Regional’s varsity squad.

Steinbach Sabres Eric Barnard and Ryder Wallace will be joined by Springfield’s Ethan Weibe and the Eastman Raiders’ Kadez Penner. Players from Grant Park (Sebastien Weisgerber), Vincent Massey (Nic Arsenault) and Dakota (Christ Slipec and Brenden Baer) round out the position group.

Fedus is considered one of the best offensive line coaches in the province.

Team Manitoba will be in action at the 2025 Football Canada Cup, which begins July 12 in Nova Scotia.

The province is also putting together a U18 Indigenous Cup team, which will feature Kleefeld’s Javien Chartrand. That tournament will take place in Manitoba at the St Vital Mustangs Field July 3/6. The Western Challenge (U16 tournament) will also be taking place at Mustangs Field July 2/5.

Ile des Chenes running back Damian Nelson was named to the U16 boys team.

“We want to give local kids something to look forward to, something to look up to” executive director of Football Manitoba Bill Johnson said in a Winnipeg Free Press interview.

“Our high performance teams, provincial teams, it’s not really on the radar. Kids who are playing tackle football are thinking they want to play university, they want to go on and play Rifles or (in Canadian Junior Football League) they want to go on and play CFL, NFL… they never really think about provincial teams.”

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are supporting both Team Manitoba and Team Northern Ontario at the Indigenous Cup, which will be played nine-on-nine for the first time.

Football Manitoba also announced their high performance U17 team, which include plenty of Eastman talent.

A strong and young SRSS receiving group will look to make a strong impression, with Ben Webster, Braeden Sinclair-Unger, Owen Medeiros and Ryan Martin all getting named to the team.

Springfield offensive line standout Levi Shewtchenko and Steinbach defensive line player Jeryk Wiebe were also named to the U17 team.

With files from Joshua Frey-Sam