They’re named the Langley Rams.
Based on the Langley-based touch football team’s impeccable season, they could just as easily been called ‘The Untouchables.’
Last weekend, the Rams won the Vancouver Touch Football League’s Top Flight Championship for the first time.
The Rams beat The Pulls 33-12 in the semifinal and edged The Outlawz 27-26 in the final, played at at Burnaby Lake Fields.
Prior to then, during the May long weekend, the Rams won a tournament in Kelowna that consisted of some of the best touch football teams in Western Canada including squads from Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Kelowna.
The Rams play in men’s Top Flight Division in the VTFL, a league that’s open to all ages. The Langley squad consists of 13 players between the age of 27 and 30 and one who is in his 50s.
The Rams have come a long way from seven years ago, when they were a mishmash of soccer, hockey, and baseball players who went to the Fleetwood Park.
“We made a team on a limb and joined the bottom division in the Abbotsford Touch Football League where we played for a few seasons,” Rams quarterback Brad Kiendl recalled. “We quickly progressed and switched to the Vancouver Touch Football League in order to seek some tougher competition.”
Along the way, the Rams experienced some up and down seasons where they lost a number of their original players due to other commitments.
In fact, they were very close to folding two years ago when they were approached by another team to merge, Kiendl explained.
“Since the merger, we’ve been committed as a team to progress and we set the goal of winning the Top Flight Division in both Maybowl and the VTFL,” Kiendl said. “We have practised pretty well year-round and dedicated ourselves to getting better in all aspects of the game. We’re all thrilled to see our hard work is finally paying off after we won the Top Flight Division in Maybowl on the May long weekend, and now this past weekend winning the league.”
The Rams have now set a goal to attend (and hopefully win) the 2017 National Touch Football Championships.
Kiendl said the VTFL is “very competitive,” especially the higher divisions. It includes eight divisions each of which consists of eight to 10 teams.
“We are thrilled to have won after having lost in the finals, to the same team, The Outlawz, last season,” Kiendl said. “We aren’t surprised that we won as we believe we’ve worked harder than the rest of the teams and thus we always feel we’re good enough to win. There may be a few people who would be surprised to hear we won the league championship and pretty well everyone was surprised to hear we won Maybowl.”
The Rams are centre Jeff Liden, corner Andrew Noble, slot receiver and safety Steven Bagnall, pass rusher Jared Donor, slot receiver and special teams player Brandon Seifred, quarterback Brad Kiendl, linebackers Eric Lehwald and Andrew Herndier, tight end Nick Third, corner Brandon Hunt, wide receivers Lyall Lepine and Chad Katnich, slot receiver Patrick Kelly, and linebacker Jeff Lovett.
