École Secondaire Notre Dame High School’s Ben McAuley is heading to Hamilton to show off his skills during the 2025 CFC Prospect Game at the end of May.
The Red Deer product will join the country’s top high school football talent as one of just 72 invitees to the game, and one of ten athletes from Alberta. The game is broadcasted every year by Canada Football Chat and TSN.
“It feels, feels pretty awesome, haven’t fully wrapped my head around that,” McAuley says. “Going to Hamilton to play in front of everybody – it feels surreal and it’s awesome to be able to experience it.”
Qualifying for the prospect game is no easy task either. McAuley had to attend a CFC Evaluation Camp in Calgary in February, one of eight professional-level combines held nation-wide. The young receiver says while he feels the weight of playing well in front of scouts, he wants to enjoy the experience too.
“A little bit of both, playing football is always fun and [I’m] hoping to just give every play a hundred percent effort and just show what I can do,” he says.
Hometown Pride
With his selection, McAuley joins the ranks of at least four Central Alberta athletes who have had the chance to take part in the CFC process, with several going on the play at the college level. Senior Cougars Head Coach and Defensive Coordinator Ian Rattan says whenever Central Alberta gets a shot on the national stage, it’s always exciting.
“Whenever we get some of our athletes that have the opportunity to play in these type of games and play with the provincial team, it’s just awesome to see them have the chance to showcase their skills to those youth sport coaches at the next level,” he says. “To essentially have an audition against the best kids in the country to showcase their talents and hopefully find a way to maybe get somebody to give them an opportunity to have football pay for their education.”
“It also shows them that even though we’re from Red Deer, Alberta, 95,000 people or whatever, we have very good athletes, we have very good football players, just like they do in Edmonton, Calgary, or Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver.”
Coach Rattan adds that some of McAuley’s former teammates will be in attendance too, and watching their progression from playing at the U16 level to the Prospect Game has been exciting to follow.
“Three years ago, I want to say we were in Regina together with the U16 provincial team, Ben was an athlete, I was fortunate enough to be coaching the defensive line, two of Ben’s teammates from Alberta, Luke Iron Eagle and Sam Preston have actually been selected to this game as well,” he says. “It’s really cool to see some of these guys that did Team Alberta U16, did Team Alberta U17 last year, now have an opportunity to play in this game, and then once the tryouts are done, hopefully we have a chance to play with the U18 provincial team that’ll be in the Canada Cup this July.”
Expectations
McAuley is a multi-time Provincial medalist – winning the championship during his 2022 season and bringing home silver the previous year. Coaches describe the 6’3″ 180-pound receiver a “natural talent” on and off the field who has continued to be a positive offensive contributor year after year; however, Rattan maintains that expectations, while high, are meaningless if McAuley doesn’t enjoy the moment.
“Honestly, I want Ben to go out and to seize this opportunity that he’s earned for himself. I want him to have as much fun as humanly possible,” he says. “If anything else happens, it’s a cherry on top, but we’re really excited for all of our athletes that get opportunities to play in these games or with Alberta because it gives ’em the chance to showcase themselves against the best talent in the country.”
“We want him just to go and have fun and play football, which he’s pretty good at doing,” he adds.
Previous CFC Prospects have committed to NCAA schools in the United States and USport schools in Canada. Additionally, several players who attended the innaugural game in 2019 were eligible for the 2025 CFL draft on April 29th.
The Big Day
Team rosters will be announced on May 20th, the CFC Prospect Game kicks off at 11:15 a.m. Eastern on May 24th at Hamilton Stadium – home of the CFL’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
