Northwestern Ontario's new Indigenous football team heads to Winnipeg

Ashton Storm Parr is hoping northwestern Ontario's new Indigenous tackle football team will bring some new Indigenous players to the sport.

The northwestern Ontario team — which is made up of players from Thunder Bay and the region — is competing in the U18 Indigenous Cup in Winnipeg this week.

The 17-year-old Parr, who is from Whitesand First Nation and plays linebacker with the team, said there's "not a whole lot of Indigenous players in Thunder Bay and the surrounding area."

"I'm very hopeful this will actually get some more Indigenous players out here to play," he said. "It's kind of sad because they're limited."

"Back home, wherever they're from, like up north and stuff like that, they're limited to their sports. Really it's more hockey, basketball and volleyball," he said. But he added that, "getting out here on the field really would be huge for some of them."

The team is off to Winnipeg for this year's Indigenous Cup, with their first game in the nine-aside tournament being played on Thursday.

"I thought it was kind of weird," head coach Jonah Siciliano said of the format. "But when you find out the field shrinks down a little bit, and you don't really notice it too much, and it helps when you know you don't got as many guys as a normal football team."

"It helps depth-wise, and keeping everybody on the field getting playing time."

Speaking at a practice at Thunder Bay's Hammarskjold High School last week, Siciliano said the team was coming together well.

"We're intense," he said."We've got some dogs on this team."

"They're ready to fight," Siciliano said. "I like the spirit we have, the mentality. It seems like everybody's getting that brotherhood feeling together. It seems like everybody's really enjoying playing together right now, so I'm excited."

15-year-old slot receiver Clark Matson, who's from Thunder Bay, said he liked the team's chances in Winnipeg.

"I think we have pretty good chance," he said. "I watched some game film on the other teams and they don't look too much better than us. So I think we do have a chance in this tournament."

Northwestern Ontario, he said, was focused on learning the playbook, and making sure everyone was fitting in.

"I think it's going pretty good," he said. "We made quite a bit of progress these past couple of days."

Parr agreed that the team was shaping up nicely.

"I think that we have a really good group of guys," he said. "I feel like these guys can ... can actually accomplish stuff, especially on defence. The defence is shaping up really well, and it's forming together very well."

The 23-year-old Siciliano — who played for Canada's U16 football team and spent four years in the Canadian Junior Football League — said there was quite a learning curve stepping into the coaching job.

"Playing for so many years, I always thought it was gonna be easy to just hop into coaching right away," he said. "But it's had its challenges."

"But this team, it's really easy when you got a really good group of kids who are really very coachable."

The 2025 U18 Indigenous Cup gets underway Thursday.

Northwestern Ontario plays Alberta at 3:30 p.m. CDT, while Manitoba plays Saskatchewan at 7:30 p.m.

The third place game is scheduled for Sunday at 10 a.m., and the first place game will take place Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

All games are being played at Winnipeg's St. Vital Mustangs Field.