A summer vacation in Antigonish (Nova Scotia) or Calgary (Alberta) would be just lovely for the overwhelming majority of Sudbury high-school student-athetes.

Unfortunately, the Sudbury Football Five – Colton Savage, Caileigh Ryan, Byron Marshall, Elsa Blum and Levi Blouin – won’t be doing a whole lot of vacationing when they make their way either east or west later this week.

The local quintet are the latest nickel city footballers to work their way through the various selection camps and on to the roster of a Team Ontario provincial squad, with all five now preparing for competition from right across the country.

A member of the Sudbury U19 Spartans girls team as well as the tackle football program at St Benedict Catholic Secondary School, Caileigh Ryan is the only repeat visitor this summer, having participated at the tournament in Fredericton (NB) in 2023.

“That was a very different lifestyle for me,” said Ryan, alluding to the all-consuming attention to football detail that is involved when the Ontario all-stars gather under very tight time constraints, typically involved in a short training camp just before flying off for actual competition.

“We were always doing stuff to prepare for the next game or prepare for the next practice.”

Such was the impact of the experience on Ryan that she nearly kiboshed the notion of trying out that Elsa Blum considered. “She scared me a little talking about Development Camp,” said Blum, a competitive hockey goaltender during the winter months, very much an all-around athlete and also a member of the Bears female football brigade.

“It’s a long day, eight hours of physical work. It was a lot and I was very tired at the end, but I think it was definitely worth it, just for the experience.”

For Ryan, the 2025 experience is sure to differ from the last.

Where she cracked the roster last summer as a running back, Ryan is making the move to the offensive line this year. “I’ve never played lineman before, but the head coach said we needed more linemen and I had the strength for it,” she explained.

“Plus, she wanted more athletes who could play different positions.”

As anyone with even a cursory knowledge of football can attest, running back and offensive lineman are two very different positions indeed. The revelation, for Ryan, came in the knowledge that she is actually blessed with a skill-set that is far more transitional than she ever imagined.

“You don’t necessarily have to be a bigger build,” said Ryan. “What I noticed is that they (the other linemen) are muscular and strong. There were girls at tryouts that we the same size as me, bigger than me, smaller than me.”

With physical attributes checked off the list, it was time to tackle the nuances of a whole new position.

“I didn’t think there was this much to learn,” said Ryan. “The footwork involved when you’re pass blocking or on a run play, it’s very specific stuff that I’ve learned, very specific steps backwards or forwards.”

“I feel that we don’t give enough credit to linemen some times.”

Colton Savage is not one to disagree.

As a linebacker who pretty much started from scratch – Savage was with the varsity Chargers in his grade nine year and the Jr Spartans the following summer, without ever seeing the field – the now provincial team standout has realized that offensive linemen can, strangely enough, be his biggest friends on the field.

“I had to learn to key off the (offensive) guards instead of keying off the backfield as a linebacker,” explained the 17 year-old who enters grade 12 at Confederation Secondary in the fall and is a key member of the U18 Jr Spartans team that posted a 6-1 record this summer in OSFL action.

“When I first started, I would stare at the running back, thinking he would tell me the play. Now I’ve learned to look at the guards; they will always tell me where the play is going.”

“I think of it as high hat, low hat,” Savage continued. “If his helmet is low, it’s almost always a run and if it’s a pass, it’s going to go up.”

Savage has undergone an incredible transformation since September of 2022, a time when he started secondary school weighing in at roughly one hundred pounds or so. Now standing a hair under 6’0” and chiseled at 200 pounds or so, the young man who values both his academics and athletics as priorities is coming off an all-star campaign with the U16 Jr Spartans (2024), cracking the Team Ontario roster on his second attempt.

“Going from being a non-athletic person to super fit has been a big change,” Savage noted. “Striving to become better, always wanting to be the best on the field, the improvement strength-wise and gaining weight during the past three years really helped.”

With access to wonderful guidance courtesy of Team Ontario staff, Savage does not hesitate to avail himself to their knowledge. “The staff have always been a big help, helping me learn how to diagnose plays, learning my position better.”

“Just being able to have one on one conversations with them helps.”

The upcoming tournaments might not qualify as pure vacation time for any one of Levi Blouin, Byron Marshall, Elsa Blum, Caileigh Ryan or Colton Savage, but it will be an experience that only makes them better.