The Prince George Kodiaks opened the 2026 BC Football Conference season by walking into Masich Place Stadium to “Many Men” by 50 Cent, foreshadowing a 50-3 loss to the Vancouver Island Raiders Saturday night.
“Our fundamentals were there, we weren’t crisp with our execution in some of our systems, guys still learning each other,” said Kodiaks Head Coach Ryan Bellamy. “Just really not our best showing of the full capability that we have with the talent on the roster.”
After making a few stops early, including a pair of interceptions from Kodiak defensive backs Aiden Leslie and Sawyer Sonsteby, a snap went over Kodiaks Punter Maxim Murphy’s head, giving the Raiders excellent field position. This led to an incredible one-handed touchdown reception for Raider Receiver Parker Moscrip, and opened the floodgates for an onslaught of Vancouver Island offense.
“We started great, had a great first quarter,” Bellamy said. “Really, we didn’t give defence enough time on the field, they got gassed out, we put them in some bad spots with some special teams mistakes. It was tough for them, they got down, then VI was able to start to pull them apart a little bit and find some vulnerabilities in the system as the guys got tired. We’ll just continue to finesse that, add to it a little bit in spots where we saw that we were a little bit vulnerable, and continue to add to our defensive playbook so that we can address some of those concerns we saw later in the game.”
The Kodiaks had a few different looks under centre throughout the game with three quarterbacks getting into the game.
“We’ve got three quarterbacks that have kind of been neck and neck, nobody’s really clearly run away with it,” Bellamy said. “They all bring different advantages to their game of play, so we wanted to see all three of them in there.”
Jeanathan Cheremshynski opened the game for the Kodiaks, but threw an interception on his first throw.
“Tough start for Jeanny with the pick of the first drive, but we were able to get him back in later in the game, really allow him to find some calm, complete some plays, have a couple drives,” Bellamy said.
Toby Plett, who backed up Sawyer Thiessen last year, saw action under centre as well, along with Zach Loewen.
All three quarterbacks had bright spots in their games, but were unable to sustain a drive for an extended time.
“We’ll continue to try and narrow that down, figure out who’s going to be the guy, so we just get that continuity of the offence of unit one is rolling together,” Bellamy said.
The Kodiaks’ season opener opener came after a week one bye for the black and yellow, which Bellamy said has its benefits and drawbacks.
“It’s a challenge, because it allowed guys to get into camp late, so maybe not the start that we would have wanted, not the same continuity we’d be at if we had to press more practices in faster,” he said. “We’re where we want to be in the playbook, it’s just we’re not meshed where we want to be on a whole lot of stuff, and those were the things that hurt us today. VI did a great job on capitalizing on those opportunities when we made a mistake on any one of the facets of the game.”
The loss puts the Kodiaks in sixth in the BC Football Conference.
The BCFC standings are here.
The Kodiaks will host the Kamloops Broncos on Saturday at Masich Place Stadium.
The full Kodiaks schedule is here.
In the only other game in the BCFC Saturday night, the Langley Rams claimed a 32-25 victory over the Okanagan Sun.
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