The 27th season of Eastman Raiders football will begin this summer.

Player registration for Crunchers, Atom, Pee Wee and Bantam age groups takes place tonight and Friday from 6 p.m. - 9 p.m. at the Clearspring Mall in Steinbach as well as Saturday from 10 a.m. until noon.

Raiders president Sean Walsh is optimistic that the numbers will be there.

"I'd like to see anywhere from 20-30 kids for Crunchers," Walsh said. "That's your baseline for your age groups. We haven't quite made a decision if we're going to make one team or two with the Atoms. It depends again on the numbers. In previous years we've had some issues with summer camps or kids getting injured. We want to make sure that each team has the right amount of numbers."

"The Bantams will be a big challenge with the junior varsity team at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School. That's going to pull away numbers for sure from our second-year players. We're hoping that we can bring some of those kids from outside the Steinbach catchment area to play this year."

Sabres head coach Jamie Peters has worked tirelessly to start up a JV program at the SRSS which could come to fruition this spring and Walsh knows the Raiders will find out soon enough how much of a hit their Bantam program is going to take.

"I was disappointed, honestly. I want to see every kid play football but it just takes away from our second-year kids. I wish Football Manitoba would adjust the Bantam level, that way kids could play both. I know its all about pride and I can't take that away from the kids. As far as the program goes we have to hope for the best."

Walsh says they had to reach out of a number of communities in the area which they hope in the long run will help sustain their Bantam team.

"We did a lot of advertising outside of Steinbach this year to try and draw in kids. We did inserts this year for all the elementary schools out of town...Ste. Anne, La Broquerie, Richer, Kleefeld and places like that. There are football players out there that don't play at the SRSS so we really tried to go out there this year and push for those first-year Bantam players or kids who have played before."

Players will also have to complete online registration which can be found on the Eastman Raiders website.