Colts hire Blokker as new head coach

Calgary — The Calgary Colts junior football team is pleased to welcome Matthew (Snoop) Blokker as their new head coach.

Blokker joins the Prairie Football Conference team after serving as head coach of the Vancouver Island Raiders of the British ColumbiaFootball Conference for the past nine seasons, leading them to three Canadian junior titles in that span.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to be joining the Colts,” the 45 year old said. “The PFC is the country’s most competitive league and I’m looking forward to the challenge of coaching in it. I have lots of friends in Calgary and I’ve very excited about coming there.”

Blokker replaces John Stevens, who resigned at the end of the 2013mseason to take a job outside of football.

Blokker was head coach and general manager of the Raiders from 2005 to 2013. He replaced the GM title with that of president of football
operations from 2012-2013. Blokker also coached the BCFC’s Victoria Rebels in 2003-04.

Board of director Art Marche, who was on the Colts’ search committee, interviewed Blokker and said he came away impressed.

“I asked him what his best quality was – he replied “nobody outworks me, ’ ” Marche said.

“The best recommendation an organization can get about head coach candidates comes from former players and the ones we spoke to used thewords ‘Great motivator and we would go through a wall for him,’ ” Marche added.

Blokker guided the Raiders to Canadian Junior Football League national titles in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He won eight BCFC titles with the
Raiders and Rebels and is the most-winningest coach in BCFC history with a record of 89-13-2.

Blokker was named CJFL coach of the year in 2013 after guiding the Raiders to the national title game against the PFC’s Regina Thunder.

He will be trying to guide the  Colts to a third national title. They won back-to-back CJFL championships in 1989 and 1990.

“The Calgary Colts are coming up on 50 years under Keith Evans as our general manager and we look forward to hitting that unheard of milestone in football (or any sport of that matter in North America) with Matt as our head coach,” offered board of director Mike Tuff.