Hamilton athletes to represent Canada at world junior football championship
CBC
In 2022, Elijah Barnes didn't get to play football on a team as the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions limited how people could get together.
And yet, it's the same year Barnes, 19, says he felt his dreams of being a pro football player were within reach.
"We would hop the fences at St. Thomas More [Catholic Secondary School] or go to open fields, public parks, anywhere we could go," he told CBC Hamilton, detailing how he and a small group of friends would train roughly three hours per day, five days per week.
"I felt like the amount of work I was able to put in, the improvement I was able to see, it felt like I could push this even more and I'm not at my peak."
Now, he's among a select group of athletes representing Canada in the 2024 International Federation of American Football (IFAF) World Junior Football Championship in Edmonton, Alta., starting next weekend.
Tournament spokesperson Brian Findlay said the two Canadian teams have 60 players each, 45 of which are expected to play.
One other player, Justin Haynes, is also from Hamilton. In addition, there are six players from McMaster University including Baptiste Tallec, Benjamin Blaise, Benjamin D'Amours, Isaiah Cooper, Jackob Branton and Josh Page.
Findlay said the Canadian teams formed after roughly 100 players from across the country were invited to try out.
The players will face off against players from Austria, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Panama and the U.S.
Canada won gold at the last two tournaments, in 2018 and 2016, and is the only team to have appeared in every gold medal game, Findlay said.
The tournament has been delayed since 2018 due to the pandemic.
Barnes said he played as many sports as he could when he was younger, but always had an affinity for football thanks to his father.
"His influence geared me toward sitting on the couch when I was two-years-old on Sundays and watching the games," Barnes said.
He said he started to truly realize how much he loved the sport in early 2015, when tears filled his eyes after seeing his favourite National Football League team, the Green Bay Packers, lose to the Seattle Seahawks in the 2014 NFC Championship game.
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