Wolfpack chases championship!

All roads for sports fans lead to Bozeman this weekend.

All season long, the Montana college football season has pointed to Saturday’s climactic Cat-Griz game at Bobcat Stadium.

For Kalispell football fans — whether of the Griz or Bobcat variety — there’s another attraction on the field in Bozeman the night before the collegiate cross-state clash.

At 7 p.m. Friday, the Glacier Wolfpack tackle the undefeated Bozeman Hawks in the playoff finale for Class AA football.

This is uncharted territory for the Wolfpack, who boast an 11-1 record and a nine-game winning streak going into the first-ever football championship game for the seven-year-old north Kalispell school.

The lone blemish on the Wolfpack’s record is a 27-12 loss to Bozeman in the early weeks of the season.

Since then the Wolfpack has devoured a series of opponents to reach the championship game. The latest victims were Butte (a 62-55 Wolfpack win in a brutal quarterfinal game) and C.M. Russell (which Glacier mightily overpowered 52-7 in the semifinals a week ago).

Now the high-powered Glacier offense — which had six touchdown plays of 40 yards or longer against CMR — takes on a similarly high-scoring team in the No. 1-ranked Bozeman Hawks.

The Wolfpack will be trying to give Kalispell its first football championship trophy since the Flathead Braves won in 1970.

We hope Montana State University and University of Montana fans from Kalispell who already were heading to Bozeman for Saturday’s game will help fill the stands at Bozeman High School to cheer on the Pack Friday night.

Congratulations are due to the Glacier High team on a sterling season so far — let’s get one more win!

A well-deserved honor

The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce bestowed its coveted Great Chief award last week on one of the Flathead Valley’s finest citizens: Dr. Van Kirke Nelson. The award is well-deserved.

His contributions didn’t stop at delivering thousands of babies during an obstetrics and gynecology career that spanned 40 years here. Nelson was among the rescue pioneers who started the ALERT air ambulance service, and he served 37 years on the ALERT board.

Nelson was a driving force behind improvements at Legends Field. He and his wife Helen helped lead the campaign for the new nursing center at Flathead Valley Community College, too. Plus, he is noted as a patron of the arts, who has helped discover and support many local artists.

In May, Nelson received the Montana Mentor Award from FVCC President Jane Karas, who noted his assistance with the college’s health-care programs and partnerships with the Blackfeet Community College in Browning.

Nelson has contributed much to the Kalispell area, and we applaud him for decades of dedication to our well-being — both physical and mental.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.