By Troy Gillard

Bonus home game this weekend

Bucs hosting AFL semifinal after Cold Lake disqualified

Aug 15, 2019 | 1:39 PM

Some end-of-season drama has led to the Alberta Football League’s top-ranked team being punted from playoffs.

After tiebreakers saw the Central Alberta Buccaneers finish third in the regular season standings, the Bucs were to visit the second place Calgary Wolfpack this weekend for the AFL semifinals.

This won’t be the case, however, as the Bucs are instead hosting the Fort McMurray Monarchs Saturday night (Aug. 17) at Great Chief Park at 6 p.m.

“We had some allegations come to light that there were some pretty serious violations by Cold Lake of the AFL bylaws. So we had to address that as a league council,” explained Buccaneers chair and offensive lineman Vince Roth. “Ultimately, Cold Lake lost their playoff eligibility.”

Roth says the violations had to do with player compensation. The league council voted unanimously to ban Cold Lake from playoff competition.

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This creates a wide open race for the league championship as the Cold Lake Fighter Jets had rolled to 7-1 regular season record, two games better than the Bucs, Monarchs and Calgary Wolfpack who each finished 5-3.

The Wolfpack will now take on the Airdrie Irish (0-8) in this weekend’s other semifinal.

The Buccaneers won both of their regular season games versus Fort McMurray by scores of 38-28 on June 1 and 34-27 on July 6.

“The second game was a little bit tighter, but we’re (feeling) pretty comfortable going into this game, I think. Confident, I guess, would be the word,” Roth said.

The Buccaneers averaged 381 yards of offence per game in the regular season to lead the AFL. They also had the second-ranked defence that allowed 304 yards/game on average.

Bucs Quarterback Jarrett Burzuk led the league with 1,813 passing yards and 22 touchdowns in eight games.

Ben Hnatiuk and Axsivier Lawrence finished one-two in receiving with 861 yards and 748 yards, respectively, and nine touchdowns each.

Kaidyn Puttick finished fifth in the league with 351 rushing yards.

Linebacker Todd Lewis was third in the league with 44.5 total tackles. Lucas Green and Tylor Johannesson were also in the top ten.

The Alberta Football League championship game will be played on Saturday, August 24.