Under new head coach Dustin Paul, the Bow Valley Bobcats football team opened their 2022 season with a 23-7 loss to Airdrie’s Bert Church Chargers. However, Paul noted it was positive the Bobcats were able to score a touchdown toward the end of the game, and he noted the score was only 9-1 in the first half.
Playing for the Calgary Rugby Union championship against their regional rivals, the Cochrane-based Bow Valley Grizzlies lost to the Banff Bears in a nail-biter on Sept. 10. In the final ‘Battle of the Bears’ of 2022, the Banff squad triumphed 19-15 in a back-and-forth encounter against the Cochranites. Bears player Mark Hooper, playing in his last match before retirement, won the contest with a try for Banff in the final two minutes. While the club’s senior men’s team came up just short, the Bow Valley Grizzlies’ U16 boys team, playing alongside Okotoks-based players from the Foothills Lions rugby club, won the CRU title by beating the Calgary Hornets/Rams. Despite rarely being able to train together, the Grizzlies/Lions finished the 2022 season unbeaten.
Cochrane runner and St. Timothy Catholic School student Caden Jones won gold in the five-kilometre race at Canmore’s Rocky Mountain Half-Marathon event on Sept. 11. Cochrane’s Ellie Barlow also competed, finishing first in the women’s 5K with a time of 23:23.9. Fellow Cochranite Reanne Booker finished third in that race.
In the annual regular-season battle between Cochrane’s two high-school football programs, the Cochrane High Cobras showed they’re still the top team in town by beating the Bow Valley Bobcats 54-3 on Sept. 16. Despite the Cobras’ eventual dominance, the Bobcats started the game strong with an impressive long-distance field goal in one of their first possessions.
The Cochrane Generals junior B hockey team opened their 2022-23 schedule in the Heritage Junior Hockey League on the road with a 6-4 loss to the Okotoks Bisons on Sept. 16. They rebounded with an 11-4 win over the Strathmore Wheatland Kings the same weekend.
An all-Cochrane showdown at Rangers Field kicked off the 2022 high-school girls’ soccer season for the Cochrane Cobras and Bow Valley Bobcats on Sept. 20. The Cobras dominated the local derby, leading 7-0 at halftime and ultimately coming away with an 8-0 victory.
After two decades of provincial dominance in Tier 3, the Cochrane Cobras made waves in Alberta football circles by announcing they would declare for Tier 1 for the 2022 post-season. As a result, the Cobras’ provincial push would be against football programs from bigger schools, including teams from Calgary, Edmonton, Red Deer and Lethbridge.
The Cochrane Chaos junior women’s hockey team opened their 2022-23 Alberta Junior Female Hockey League season with a 4-1 victory over the Calgary Jags on Sept. 25.
