Twin brothers commit to Bisons football

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This article was published 17/12/2021 (1359 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For twin brothers Jordin and Drew Boucher, football is more than a pastime. It’s a passion.

On Dec. 15, the Boucher brothers committed to continue their gridiron journey with the University of Manitoba Bisons in the fall of 2022. The ceremony was held in the Murdoch MacKay library with their mother and father, Greg and Tammy, and grandparents Gilbert and Lenora, as well as staff and fellow members of the school’s football team, present.

“I’m happy we’re staying home and doing it together,” Drew Boucher said following the signing. “We’ve always done everything together, so this will be another great four or five years. It’s gonna be great doing it together.”

“We were actually going to wait until January to make this decision,” Jordin added. “But we did it now because our grandma just got put into palliative care, so we wanted to let her know before she sadly passes away.”

As members of Murdoch’s offensive line, the Bouchers helped propel the team into the Winnipeg High School Football League’s Division 2 final this fall. The team, which featured many players new to tackle football, went 3-2 in five regular season starts, scoring 81 points for on the year, with 65 against before beating Sisler 30-14 in the semifinal before falling 34-21 to Springfield in the final match.

“I think it’s important to note that signing letters of intent don’t just happen. It’s rare,” Brian Dobie, head coach of the University of Manitoba Bisons, said. “These guys outworked pretty much everyone in the province. Being 6-foot-4, 225 pounds or whatever certainly helped their cause. But there are others who are out there in the same boat who aren’t achieving what they have.”

Dobie noted that both boys have put in the time with Manitoba’s U16 program, while continuing to train regularly throughout the pandemic.

“They have drive and passion,” Andrew Westwood, an assistant coach and teacher at Murdoch MacKay, said. “We had a whole year off last year, which turned a lot of kids off. But not them. Not for a second.”

“Through COVID, we were doing anything we could to get back on the field or in the gym, because they were all closed,” Drew added. “We put in a lot of hard work, training with Recruit Ready in the off season, getting in the gym, COVID was tough but we persevered through that and came back this year, made it to the finals.”

“We’re thrilled when kids can use football as a means to get to the next level, or get their education,” added coach and teacher Andrew Mauthe. “Having taught both of them, they’re great academic kids as well as huge personalities on the football field. Seeing them tie this together and move on to the next level is awesome. We’re immensely proud of these guys.”

Drew and Jordin’s parents and grandparents are about as proud of their boys as one would imagine.

“They’ve worked hard to get here and we’ll support them on all their future endeavours,” Tammy Boucher said of her sons. “This is their passion.”

“I couldn’t be more proud of them,” Greg Boucher said “The effort, the time, the work they’ve put in doing this to get where they are, they deserve all the credit. Getting up at 5:30 a.m. in the morning to get them to 6:15 a.m. Recruit Read workouts at the GolfDome? I would do it in a heartbeat, I don’t regret it one bit whatsoever.”

Still, the path the boys have chosen came as some surprise to their father.

“Honestly, I never wanted them to play football,” he admitted. “We are a hockey family, we’ve always been. So when they decided to play football, I hummed and hawed and eventually said, ‘OK, let’s see if this is what they wanted to do.’ Seven years later, this is where they ended up.”

“Growing up, it was always driven into our heads that we were hockey players, but we were so big out there and all we wanted to do was hit,” Drew recalled. “But that wasn’t in hockey at the time. Thanks to Kevin Bailey and Krista Ducharme at the Nationals, they pursued us to play football. If it wasn’t for them, we would have never started playing.”

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“Those first few years, we didn’t know what we were doing out there,” Jordin added with a chuckle. “We’d just go out and hit the guy in front of you.”

“Through off season work and studying the game we got to where we are today,” Drew noted.

“I’m very, very proud of them,” added grandpa Gilbert. “It’s something you don’t expect and it happened. I’ll probably be watching football for a while now.”

Both Boucher boys will be studying business at the University of Manitoba. And while playing professionally in the Canadian Football League remains the dream, but finishing university in good standing is the priority.

“Playing football is the dream, but if we walk out of there with an education that will help us get good jobs down the road, that’s the goal,” Jordin said.

Sheldon Birnie
Community Journalist

Sheldon Birnie is a reporter/photographer for the Free Press Community Review. The author of Missing Like Teeth: An Oral History of Winnipeg Underground Rock (1990-2001), his writing has appeared in journals and online platforms across Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. A husband and father of two young children, Sheldon enjoys playing guitar and rec hockey when he can find the time. Email him at sheldon.birnie@freepress.mb.ca Call him at 204-697-7112

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