North Pole Football building their way into the 2023 Season

The season opening kick off is just over 24 hours away and the North Pole Patriots are preparing for the Eagle River Wolves.

Progression, sometimes it’s hard, other times it’s easy, but it’s something North Pole has done every year since Coach Hollett took over at the helm of Patriot football.

“Feeling good, I feel like the kids are coming together. A lot of the work that we’ve put in through the off-season, a lot of work through the last few seasons really. Just starting to see that pay dividends, and kids coming in feeling good about being a part of North Pole football. Feeling good about, you know, getting to know each other and kids are developing as leaders. It’s just really cool to see kind of that hard work paid off at the start of our season here,” said North Pole’s head football coach, Michael Hollett.

Rebuilding the culture of a football program takes time and a lot of patience. Building a brotherhood comes down to kids wanting to come and join the fun the rest of the team is having.

“It’s been really fun, you know, like I’ve had a lot of kids who would never even think about playing football come to play football because of how many people are just showing up. Over the years, we’ve collected a lot more kids than past years, and this year we got about 72 kids,” said Ivan Nicholson, North Pole middle linebacker.

For a team that has built the culture and built a brotherhood, opening up the season at home with a tough opponent can really be the jolt to jumpstart a great season.

“You know, I’m pretty excited about it. It’ll give us a good look for the rest of the season, hitting some kids, happy about it,” said Kamden Stark, North Pole’s senior Quarterback.

The Patriots open their season at home against conference foe, the Eagle River Wolves, Friday night for a seven o’clock kick off.

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