The term ‘Title Town’ has been tossed around in Okotoks for a few years.
And after the past 12 months we’ve seen in the local sports community, that movement should only grow with 2024 highlighted by a number of breakthrough performances, unprecedented movements and, principally, championships.
Here’s our look at the top 10 sports stories of the year for 2024, listed chronologically.
Oilers join the BCHL
We start it off with the most debated news item of the year.
Last winter marked a momentous time in junior hockey that ended with the Okotoks Oilers among five Alberta teams joining the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL).
What can only be described as a saga saw the former AJHL teams sidelined for a short period of time before joining the BCHL to close the regular season and postseason playing exclusively against one another.
The Alberta teams now form the majority of the BCHL’s Interior East Division in their first full seasons in the Jr. A loop.
Basketball Builders
It’s always been an uphill climb to contend with big city schools and the traditional southern Alberta powerhouses at the 4A level in high school basketball.
For a number of years, Okotoks’ Foothills Falcons and Holy Trinity Academy Knights have been making up ground and in 2024 that culminated with best-ever finishes for both programs at the Alberta Schools’ Athletic Association 4A provincials in Red Deer.
The Falcons senior girls had a brilliant season and just missed the provincial podium with a fourth-place finish, soaring above their previous best as consolation winners the year prior.
On the boys side of the bracket, the Knights battled to a top-eight finish to also set a school benchmark while taking home the ASAA Sportsmanship Award.
Winning Heritage
History has a way of repeating itself.
For the second time in franchise history, the Carstar Okotoks Bisons won Alberta Jr. B provincial gold and did so one year after taking silver as provincial hosts.
Redemption came in Peace Country for a Bisons team that was the class of the Heritage Junior Hockey League for the third year in a row. Okotoks, 14-time league champions, are well positioned for a shot at a four-peat this spring and few would bet against them.
Rugby royalty
The high school rugby scene continues to grow the with the proliferation of sevens rugby in addition to traditional fifteens.
And Okotoks’ rugby community continues to be in the mix amid that changing landscape with a pair or provincial titles in both formats of the game to show for it.
The Falcons bested the Raymond Comets in an overtime thriller of a provincial rugby sevens final with Savanah Sommerfeldt ending the game on a tremendous, refuse-to-be-denied try from the multi-sport athlete.
At the fifteens finals in Red Deer, the Knights boys capped a dominant season with a decisive provincial triumph over Chinook at the Tier I level.
Glass crowned at Stampede
Jason Glass’ checkerboard wagon was hard to miss in the winner’s circle at the Stampede.
The High River chuckwagon driver put an exclamation point on a sterling 10 days of racing with the second Cowboys Rangeland Derby title of his career at the 2024 Calgary Stampede.
Glass had three day money performances and set a track record in what was a dominant weekend. Fellow-foothills driver Dayton Sutherland was the top rookie at the Derby and helped Glass take home the title as one of his two outriders in Calgary.
Olympic ascent
Okotoks swimmer Finlay Knox firmly planted himself on the international swimming scene with a breakthrough performance at the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
The Okotoks Mavericks alumnus was a finalist in four events at his second Olympic Games, including his signature 200m individual medley and a trio of relays, as part of one of the strongest Team Canada swimming outfits ever put together.
With the first Olympic experience occurring during the pandemic at 2020 Tokyo, Knox got the full meal deal in 2024 and took full advantage of it.
Dawgs repeat three-peat
The Okotoks Dawgs’ winning ways extended to a third-straight league title for the second time in program history.
The 2024 championship, won after dramatic three-game series triumphs over Lethbridge, Sylvan Lake and Moose Jaw, was by all accounts the most difficult to accomplish.
Homegrown Dawg Connor Crowson clinching the title with a walk-off home run in Game 3 at Seaman Stadium will surely go down in history as one of the signature moments from the marquee franchise in the Western Canadian Baseball League.
Cavalry coronation
Six years of work to climb to the apex of the Canadian Premier League culminated in a November afternoon soccer fans won’t forget in Foothills County.
Cavalry FC finally knocked off its nemesis Forge FC to take home its first CPL Playoff title in a 2-1 triumph in front of a record crowd of over 7,000 passionate supporters at Spruce Meadows’ ATCO Field.
Cavalry FC, regular season champions in 2019 and 2023, earned the right to compete in the Concacaf Champions Cup as finalists in the playoff.
Knights on the gridiron
The HTA Knights football program has officially entered the dynasty business.
HTA captured its third provincial championship in the past five seasons with an overpowering 49-9 win over the hometown St. Joseph Celtics in Grande Prairie to secure the 4A banner.
Star runningback Seth Poelzer broke the provincial record for yards rushing with a cool 391 on the ground as the Knights won gold in record-setting fashion.
Roaring finish
Okotoks curling was once again on top of the national podium in December.
Team Alberta, featuring Okotoks skip Atina Ford Johnston, vice-skip Shannon Morris, second Sheri Pickering and lead Cori Morris, won the 2024 Everest Canadian Senior Curling Championships gold medal on Dec. 7 at the Moncton Curling Club in New Brunswick.
Ford Johnston, a fixture in the Okotoks curling community as a coach and leader, earned the right to represent Canada at the upcoming world championships held in the Maritime province’s capital city of Fredericton in the spring.
