Ashton Sahli on Pound Sand at a competition in Edmonton. (Covy Moore/CovyMoore.com)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

giddy up!

Local rider competing in first Red Deer PBR Canada Cup Series event

Jun 3, 2022 | 12:15 PM

Professional Bull Riders (PBR) is bringing its Canada Cup Series to Red Deer for the first time, June 11 at Westerner Park.

Competitors will earn crucial points at the event on their path to being crowned 2022 PBR Canada champion, which comes with a $50,000 bonus.

The first-ever PBR Canada Cup Series event in Red Deer comes on the spurs of one of the most exciting, and historic battles for the PBR Canada Championship in history, a release says.

Part of the Red Deer event will be hometown hopeful Ashton Sahli, who’s just 21 and ranked 131 in the world.

Sahli heads into the Red Deer event — his first time here since competing in a PRCA event last year — hoping for a great start to the series, this being its first of the year. Eight events will follow Red Deer’s including the PBR Canada National Finals in November.

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“The best part about it is my family will be coming out to watch, and my friends too. It gives you that bit more of a drive to stay on and do good when everyone’s watching you,” Sahli said to rdnewsNOW.

“I’ve been around rodeo my whole life. It’s been a family affair for as long as I can remember. This is my second season professionally, and this year I’m looking to go bigger and better.”

In 2021, his rookie campaign, Sahli finished strong in the Canada Cup Series, winning an event outright in November.

Other noteworthy highlights of the upcoming competition:

• After a dominant season, including four event wins across all levels of competition, Dakota Buttar entered the 2021 PBR Canada National Finals with a firm grip on the No. 1 ranking in the race for the 2021 PBR Canada Championship. However, a groin injury initially sustained at the final regular-season event of the year proved too much for Buttar to battle, inevitably sidelining him from competition the last day of the campaign.
• With the title decided on the final outs of the year, 2018 PBR Canada Champion Cody Coverchuk mounted an incredible come-from-behind surge, erasing Buttar’s 53.66-point lead, to conclude the year No. 1 in the nation, capturing his second career national championship.
• Coverchuk is now one of just three riders to have won the coveted PBR Canada Championship in multiple seasons, joining the likes of two-time title holder Zane Lambert and three-time Champion Aaron Roy.

More information is at pbrcanada.com.