By Philip Rushton
The Edson Axmen and the Edmonton Pirates destroyed each other on the battlefield and came to a 22 all tie.
"It was a team effort to the end," said Danny Kuzmic, "anyone can fall over the line to score."
The Axmen came from a slow start behind 22-5 at half-time and stopped the Pirates.
"It was a high emotion game," said Wade Heidler, "There might have been a punch or two, but we leave it on the field."
With ankle, knee and ribs injuries on both sides, the Axmen were without any substitutions.
"Nobody walks away unscathed," said Kuzmic.
The Axmen had 4 tries and 1 conversions and the Pirates had 3 tries, 2 converts and a penalty.
"These guys have a lot of heart and we're still undefeated."
P.S. these guys were 100% heart. When I was finished shooting photos and interviewing, I got an invite to party from true gentleman Danny. The team was hosting dinner and liquid bread for Edmonton team after having to drive so long to get there, so everyone chatted it -- after they'd destroyed each other on the field, all friendly afterwards.
It's just how they do hospitality in small towns, the more the merrier. Nice when I didn't feel like I had much to do on a Saturday evening after living in a hotel for weeks on my own.
P.S.S. I've covered a lot of sports, but I've seen few through a view-finder where I had to look away to keep from incredulous laughing and winching at the same time -- these guys are viciously mauling each other. Train-wrecks are less explosive.
Like EPIC STRUGGLE, short of mauling each other, but apparently that's the proper term for ripping the ball out of the other guy's arms - mauling. Football through a telephoto lens looks painful, but these guys weren't wearing tons of pads.
Good times.... like there were guys just at the bottom of the brutal tackles holding their heads to avoid having ears ripped off by the inch long cheats. Someone was always slow to get up afterwards. When someone was down for the count, the other team kicked the ball out of bounds, even though they had possession.
And only one penalty called? I played soccer for years and we'd get cards for the amount of stuff they got away, jersey grabbing, vicious elbows, knees, straight-arms flying tackles, okay the punches actually got a penalty and there's a lot of loss of possession and scrums if it seems like both teams are destroying each other too much from what I could tell. And they were grinning from ear to ear at the end.
It was incredibly cool to watch and hear the thuds of train-wrecks of guys solidly connecting or deftly avoiding tackles -- a graceful running game. Soccer might be gentleman's game played by ruffians. However, I can see why rugby is the opposite -- gentlemen playing a ruffian's game -- other than amazing amount of swearing, but that's a whole different matter.
The Edson Axmen and the Edmonton Pirates destroyed each other on the battlefield and came to a 22 all tie."It was a team effort to the end," said Danny Kuzmic, "anyone can fall over the line to score."
The Axmen came from a slow start behind 22-5 at half-time and stopped the Pirates."It was a high emotion game," said Wade Heidler, "There might have been a punch or two, but we leave it on the field."
With ankle, knee and ribs injuries on both sides, the Axmen were without any substitutions.
"Nobody walks away unscathed," said Kuzmic.
The Axmen had 4 tries and 1 conversions and the Pirates had 3 tries, 2 converts and a penalty.
"These guys have a lot of heart and we're still undefeated."
P.S. these guys were 100% heart. When I was finished shooting photos and interviewing, I got an invite to party from true gentleman Danny. The team was hosting dinner and liquid bread for Edmonton team after having to drive so long to get there, so everyone chatted it -- after they'd destroyed each other on the field, all friendly afterwards.
It's just how they do hospitality in small towns, the more the merrier. Nice when I didn't feel like I had much to do on a Saturday evening after living in a hotel for weeks on my own.
P.S.S. I've covered a lot of sports, but I've seen few through a view-finder where I had to look away to keep from incredulous laughing and winching at the same time -- these guys are viciously mauling each other. Train-wrecks are less explosive.
Like EPIC STRUGGLE, short of mauling each other, but apparently that's the proper term for ripping the ball out of the other guy's arms - mauling. Football through a telephoto lens looks painful, but these guys weren't wearing tons of pads.
Good times.... like there were guys just at the bottom of the brutal tackles holding their heads to avoid having ears ripped off by the inch long cheats. Someone was always slow to get up afterwards. When someone was down for the count, the other team kicked the ball out of bounds, even though they had possession.
And only one penalty called? I played soccer for years and we'd get cards for the amount of stuff they got away, jersey grabbing, vicious elbows, knees, straight-arms flying tackles, okay the punches actually got a penalty and there's a lot of loss of possession and scrums if it seems like both teams are destroying each other too much from what I could tell. And they were grinning from ear to ear at the end.It was incredibly cool to watch and hear the thuds of train-wrecks of guys solidly connecting or deftly avoiding tackles -- a graceful running game. Soccer might be gentleman's game played by ruffians. However, I can see why rugby is the opposite -- gentlemen playing a ruffian's game -- other than amazing amount of swearing, but that's a whole different matter.
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