Wilson, Holy Trinity look to tackle cancer: Football for the Cure game at Oshawa’s Civic Stadium Thursday

OSHAWA — If you were thinking about checking out a high school football game, Thursday’s under the lights at Civic Stadium would be a great place to start.

From a purely interest standpoint, the senior game between Whitby’s Wilson Gators and Courtice’s Holy Trinity Titans features two of the area’s football powerhouses, and the two finalists from last year’s LOSSA championship game.

So, it should be a good one.

But, there’s much more to this game, as it’s also being touted as Football for the Cure, a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society.

The idea was conceived by Wilson coach Adam Papadakos and enthusiastically embraced by his counterpart, Fred Zinkie at Holy Trinity.

“That’s a great thing for high school sports to support,” said Zinkie, whose Titans dethroned the three-time champion Gators in a thrilling final a year ago and went on to win the Metro Bowl. “We just thought that the Wilson-Holy Trinity game, after last year’s league final, is going to be a big game. There’s going to be a lot of people there.”

Although the teams have been staunch rivals on the field for the past several years, Papadakos says it was a no-brainer to play this game for a common cause.

“The battle is not on the field, really. The battle is off the field,” said Papadakos, referring to cancer research. “It’s fantastic that both schools are supporting this great event.”

On the field, the two teams are part of only a four-team tier one league this season, joining Ajax’s Pickering Trojans and Pickering’s St. Mary Monarchs.

In addition to playing each other once in the regular season, the four schools have arranged exhibition matches to round out their season, prior to meeting again in the playoffs.

If their first LOSSA action is any indication, the Gators appear to be strong again, as they easily handled the Monarchs 42-0, while the Titans fell to the Trojans, 28-13.

Zinkie lost several key players from the Metro Bowl team to graduation and has a relatively young team this year, but expects to see improvement throughout the season.

But, regardless of how it all plays out, the two coaches have the proper perspective heading into Thursday’s game.

“I think the programs are very similar,” Papadakos said of the two schools, which are both relatively new. “We’ve both done things like play games in the hotbed of football in Ohio, and both programs have been successful. It’s going to be a tremendous night for a phenomenal event.”

“We both work really hard at it, the kids and the program work really hard at it, but it’s high school football,” Zinkie agreed. “It’s a great thing to do and it develops teenagers, and that’s terrific, but were talking about cancer research, talking about raising money for something that could save peoples’ lives. It’s something that affects a lot of people in both of our football programs.”

Admission to the game, which kicks off at 7 p.m., is $5 for adults and $2 for students.