Alberta
Door opening for fan increase for minor-sports?

No surprise that the COVID pandemic has eliminated many high-profile sports in the last 100 days or so, and that promoters are struggling to get back to work. What may be a shock is that many officials tied to low-profile sports see an opportunity to fill the gap with events that normally receive only limited space on the back pages – if they get any media attention at all.
One of those who sees the opening, and welcomes it, is a man intimately connected with university, junior and age-class versions of his sport at all levels.
Enthusiastic comments are part of the Tim Enger personality; he played and coached this game before stepping into administration and ultimately becoming executive director of Football Alberta. It’s a big plus that he tempers his optimism with the basic understanding that the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB and others are sure to draw the bulk of fan and media support as soon as massive problems with border access, real or feared boosts in infection totals and growing disputes between players and ownership are settled. The Canadian Football League cannot be added to this list because there has been no clear indication that any games will be played in 2020.
The timing of Enger’s comments is commendable. So is his understanding that a lot of professional supporters are reluctant to watch unknown amateurs do their thing. “We know that not every game is a thriller,” he conceded. “But most of our games provide a good level of excitement.”
Obviously, the major difficulty right now is tied to coronavirus reduction. Grid schedules will not be settled for quite awhile. “In Alberta (Step 2 of the recovery process), junior teams have permission to practice in cohorts of 50. Basically, that’s an offensive group and a defensive group. They haven’t been approved for larger numbers, so there are no full-team workouts at this point.
“We (Football Alberta) stay in contact with the health minister and Alberta Health Services,” said Enger, happy that his small staff is back at headquarters in the Percy Page Centre after two months of working almost exclusively at home. “There has been no sign of when Tier 3 will go into effect, so all we can do is wait.”
Tentative schedules have been designed. Obviously they’ll be adjusted as necessary.
He anticipates at least a partial junior schedule this season, perhaps starting in August with the Edmonton Huskies, Edmonton Wildcats and Calgary Colts filling some dates. Clashes with Saskatchewan and Manitoba teams are iffy these days because provincial rules vary on border access and possible isolation.
“There has been talk of a Manitoba-Saskatchewan connection, with a possible playoff between the two groups. We’ll have to wait and see.”
The Prairie Junior Conference outlook changes radically from high school programs,” he said. They deal with school boards, principals and the ASAA (Alberta Schools Athletic Association.) Their road to competition might be quite a bit longer than ours.”
Already, the University of Alberta decision to give the Golden Bears a year off has negatively affected provincial football. For those concerned that they may be done for good, it’s pleasant to recall what happened when athletic director Dale Schula announced the sport had been chopped in 1991. The Bears alumni stepped up to raise enough money to keep the program alive. Two years later, then-coach Tom Wilkinson – one of Canada’s leading sports heroes, in many opinions — led a drive to raise another $400,000 when tight university economics threatened a final end to Golden Bears football.
Alberta
Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

From LifeSiteNews
The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.
A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.
H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.
School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.
In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.
The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”
In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”
The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”
Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”
He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”
“I’m hoping that this demand letter, and all the attention that they’ve gotten over this, causes them to make some change,” he stated.
Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.
According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.
Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”
Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.
Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
Alberta
Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

From LifeSiteNews
By
The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.
Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.
The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.
Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.
“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”
According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”
He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”
Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.
All Alberta schools have until October 31 to provide a list of books that will be removed under the new rules, with the ban taking effect on January 5, 2026.
As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.
The ban was to take effect on October 1.
The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.
The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.
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