Newmarket Huron Heights Secondary School’s Owen Lock has long imagined playing for Team Canada.
The Keswick native said growing up, he hoped that would come in the sport of hockey, dreaming of playing in the famed world juniors for sport.
But it was football that called Lock. The linebacker is now getting to represent his country as part of Team Canada 1 at the IFAF World Junior Football Championship in Edmonton this week.
“It felt amazing,” Lock said about being named to the team. “Every kid dreams of playing for their country … It’s been the best experience I’ve ever had.”
The tournament features eight teams, including two Canadian rosters, U.S.A., Japan, Austria, Australia, Panama and Brazil. Players under 20 vie to be crowned the junior world champions. The tournament has run every two years since it began in 2009 but is now operating on a four-year cycle. This is also the first one since 2018, with the pandemic halting the tournament.
The 17-year-old Lock, who has played with Newmarket’s famed Huron Heights Warriors the past couple of seasons and was named an MVP in 2023, said this Canadian team has been excellent to be part of.
“Already you can feel a connection between everyone. We’re here with a common goal and as we went on, it was great,” he said, adding that getting to learn from some of the older players has also been a positive experience.
The football player said he began as an all-around athlete, also enjoying hockey in his younger years. But he got into flag football in grades 7 and 8 and decided to try full-on tackle football when he got to high school, starting at Bill Crothers Secondary School.
“I just fell in love with the sport immediately. It was everything hockey was but so much more,” Lock said, adding he appreciated the strategic elements of football. “It’s a whole different kind of sport, and then from there, I wanted to start taking it more seriously, so I dropped hockey.”
He continued to play for Bill Crothers and then a summer team in the York Region Lions before eventually deciding to transfer to become part of the Huron Heights Warriors. The Warriors are widely regarded as one of the best high school football programs in the country and topped Ontario high school football last season.
Lock described a desire to be athletic throughout his life. Football allowed him to shine, he said.
“People think it’s for meatheads, but it’s a sport that really allowed me to use my brain as well as those physical traits that I couldn’t use in other sports,” he said. “It just really felt like it was a fit.”
As a linebacker, Lock rushed for 839 yards in 13 games with Huron Heights in 2023, along with 13 rushing touchdowns. The season has gotten him recruiting attention from universities, with Lock hoping to get into post-secondary football.
But next season, Lock said he plans to return to Huron Heights for an extra year after his graduation.
“I’m still not 100 per cent sure what I want to take in university,” he said, adding he also missed time in the halls of school due to COVID-19. “We decided the best decision was to go back to Huron for one more year and try to get as many opportunities for myself after that.”
The tournament will wrap up June 30. Lock’s Team Canada 1 squad opened the tournament June 22 with a 110-0 win over Brazil. The team followed that up June 26 with a 27-20 win over Austria, and will now compete versus Japan for the gold medal.
Asked to give advice to younger players, Lock said hard work truly pays off.
“Just put in as much work as you can. When you look back in the future, you’ll never say, ‘I wish I put less work into football,’” he said. “There’s always more to be done to try to boost yourself to that next level.”
