By: Mike Still (@mikestill94)
Feature photo: The 2018 iteration of the #cutestshowonturf
Entering the 2016 season, former St. Vital and Dakota standout Lucas Johnston had a tough decision to make regarding his football future.
The mature pivot had played his first year post-high school with the Winnipeg Rifles, however the experience wasn’t all that we has hoping for. He was seriously considering hanging up his cleats for good, however that all changed when he was approached by some of his 2015 Rifles teammates such as linebackers Chris Brown-Fillion and Logan Thacker.
They brought up the idea of playing in the Manitoba Major Junior Football League (MMJFL) with the St. Vital Mustangs, a proposition that Johnston was all for, as it gave him the opportunity to continue balling out with the guys he’d gotten close to on the Gunners’ roster as well as other players he’d grown up with.
It didn’t take long for the 2016 Mustangs to develop an identity, courtesy of Johnston.
“[The #cutestshowonturf] started completely by accident,” he joked.
“The first year there we used to always make jokes about how cute of a team we were and all this stuff. Eventually there was one game, I forget which one it was, where I had watched a video of the greatest show on turf [1999-01 St. Louis Rams] the night before so it was kind of in my mind.
And I was like you know what, we’re the cutest show on turf. We started saying that when we were talking about our team and then it just caught on. Everyone started using it. This was three years ago and every year since then we sort of pick it back up and run with it.”
The inaugural edition of the #cutestshowonturf also included players such as Cam Penner, Matt Miles and Robert Lussier. As a group, they were near unstoppable, scoring 301 total points while giving up just 70 en route to an undefeated league championship.
“On the field, we’ve gone to battle every single week that we’ve played. The [cutest show on turf] brand is a brotherhood, it’s a family,” says Lussier, a versatile defensive back/product of the St. Paul’s Crusaders who performs well above his 5’8″ frame, especially in championship games.
“Here are a bunch of guys that you know are going to have your back and go out there and fight for you. It’s very much a team-first mentality. Really, I’ve never been a part of something quite like that.
Off the field, we hang outside of the football season. It’s friendship year round. Personally, I enjoy spending my time with these guys. They’re a fun, engaging group and everyone has a genuine friendship with each other.”
For Johnston, that “team-first mentality” has resulted in him playing all over the field during the last three seasons, including as a receiver and defensive end, the latter of which earned him all-star status during the team’s 2016 championship run.
” When I went to the Mustangs the team already had a fifth-year quarterback in Matt Nikkel,” he says.
“He was a really good player and obviously one of the leaders on the team so I didn’t feel like it was my place to go in and fight him for his job. I just wanted to help the team in whatever way I could.
We were already set on linebackers so they tried me out at defensive line. From there it was history. I got the gist of it real quickly, it clicked and I played reasonably well I guess.”
A year after Nikkel aged out, the #cutestshowonturf got another valued member in gunslinger Peter LeClair, the team’s Offensive Player of the Year in 2018.
An impact playmaker at Grant Park, he went to Vancouver Island for a year to play with the Raiders before returning to Winnipeg and finding his home with the Mustangs.
“When you’re coming into a new team you kind of have a lot to prove, whether you’re a starter or not. But those guys didn’t care if it was your first year or your fifth year, they just wanted to play football. It was great to be with guys who didn’t care who you were, they just wanted to win.”
It was an added bonus to have a teammate like Johnston, who being a former pivot himself could relate to some of the things LeClair was seeing on the field.
“It’s definitely nice having somebody who’s had the experience as well, whether it’s a mistake I’ve made or he’s made and trying to grow on that mistake or just being able to give each other pointers on what we’re seeing or have seen and how we do things,” LeClair says.
“Even though he’s not playing quarterback now, he’s still there, he’s in the huddle playing receiver so he’s coaching on the field as he’s playing and it’s definitely a big help.”
St. Vital returned to the championship game in 2017, however they were upended by a Transcona Nationals squad that surrounded just 21 points all year. The following season was deja-vu, as the Mustangs went undefeated before falling yet again to the Nationals in the finals.
For Johnston, the 2019 season can’t come soon enough as the #cutestshowonturf look to finish what they started.
“I think our first priority is to win the championship. And on top of that we’d like to finish off the undefeated season that we got close to last year and just take it one game at a time.
Going into every game I always tell the guys we don’t want to let up a single point and we want to score every single time we touch the ball. So we go into each game with that sort of mentality of let’s be perfect today. Pretty much take it one game at a time.”