The Hafford Vikings took on the Meeteetse Longhorns on Friday (Submitted photo/Tarah Burletoff)

By Lane Hoffart

Cross-Border Battle

Hafford Vikings host American football team

Sep 8, 2025 | 11:53 AM

It was a unique and historic matchup on Friday as the Hafford Vikings football team hosted a game against the Meeteetse Longhorns, a team from Wyoming. The game ended with Hafford beating Meeteetse 53-22. Though the game itself was hard-fought, the teams have always considered themselves more as friends than rivals.

Friday’s game was not the first of its kind between the cross-border teams. Vikings Coach Ryan Barnstable said the friendship between the two teams goes back nearly a decade, when Hafford hosted an international game.

“In 2016, we hosted the Can-Am Bowl. It’s a Grade 12 six-man all-star game between Canada and the US. And at that time, the Meeteetse coach at the time invited us down for a game with our high school team. So, in 2018, we did end up going down and playing Meeteetse with our football team.”

Barnstable said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the students. He also credits the trip for revolutionizing Hafford’s football program.

“The kids went to school with the Meeteetse students and got to go tour Yellowstone Park and it was just an amazing trip… It was kind of a turning point in our program where our players and parents who went down got to see just amazing facilities and effort put into their program and just how they do things down there. We were able to bring back a lot of things back here to improve our program.”

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The Hafford Vikings played a game in Meeteetse, WY in 2018 (Submitted photo/Ryan Barnstable)

Zeb Hagen, head coach of the Meeteetse Longhorns, said that the rematch with Hafford has been a long time coming.

“We were going to try it again; I think it was the COVID year. So that didn’t work out, where they would come to Meeteetse, so we kept working on it and finally got it to work out for us to come up this year,” he said.

He added it has been worth the wait.

“A lot of our kids have never been to Canada, so it’s definitely a neat experience for them,” he said.

Football is not the only sport involved in the across-the-border trip, the Meeteetse girls volleyball team also made their way up to battle it out with the Hafford Viqueens and Rosetown Royals.

The Hafford Viqueens battle it out with the Meeteetse Longhorns Volleyball team (Lane Hoffart/battlefordsNOW Staff)

Viqueens Coach Brandon Ewanchuk said he is working on building a volleyball program of the same caliber as Hafford’s football team. He said playing Meeteetse will provide valuable experience in creating the high-quality program.

“I’m going to try and build a program kind of like Barnstable has done with his football program and more along the lines of kind of earn to go play a top team in the states and not just kind of tag along.”

In the volleyball games, Meeteetse beat both Hafford and Rosetown in two sets. Hafford also had a win, beating Rosetown in two sets.