Estevan will not be named Riderville this year, but green is definitely still the colour in the Energy City.Estevan is Riderville committee chairman Alf Tide revealed Monday that the local campaign raised over $30,000 for high school and minor football in the city.The five finalists in the provincial competition, spearheaded by the Saskatchewan Roughriders in honour of their centennial season, were announced Saturday and included Avonlea, Weyburn, Yorkton, Unity, and Nipawin.The grand prize for the competition included $25,000 to support minor sports in the winning community along with a Riderville sign to be placed near the edge of town."It would be so great to have that Riderville sign underneath our (city) sign but really when we started all this it was to raise money to get the rest of our fields finished, and to support football in Estevan, and we accomplished that in a very big way," said Tide."When we started we thought maybe we'd raise $10,000. Then we thought well maybe we can do $20,000."Even so, Tide was still disheartened to learn Estevan was not among the five finalists.He feels that a 1,000-word essay and 30-second video -the sole criteria on which communities were to be judged - could not do justice to the community spirit he said was felt in Estevan over the past two months.Tide also suggested public sentiment may have played a role in picking the finalists as Avonlea, Yorkton, and Weyburn all received significant coverage from the provincial media over the course of the contest."We tried in every way possible to get some coverage with different media in Regina and weren't successful at all," he said.Fan voting for the winning community will take place Aug. 13-31 with the winner to be announced Sept. 5."No community did what we did as far as turning it into a full-blown campaign," said Tide. "It was a lot of fun and I thought it brought the whole community together. Everything went really well and everything went according to plan except that we didn't make the finals."
