Day 2 at the Grey Cup began bright and early with the West champion’s breakfast. The mood was light as the media hordes descended on the players for interviews. Tad Kornegay played the role of comic by wrapping his utensils in a napkin to make it look like a mic and it made an appearance in a few scrums. I tripped over my bag and nearly ran into Donovan Alexander; I can see the headline now: RIDERS CORNER KNOCKED OUT OF CUP BY BUMBLING REPORTER.
You have to admire the Riders assistant coaches. Doug Berry was up at 4 am to work on the meeting and practice plans. He did that to compensate for lost time at the breakfast. Ken Miller oversees things and deals with media and other distractions but it’s the assistants who institute the game plan.
This was the only media availability of the day as practice was closed. The league allows one closed session for teams to work on things without the cameras and peeps around. Berry says they don’t rely on trick plays but could use this time to work on the ones they do have. I’ve seen the Riders work on a few plays throughout the year they haven’t tried in games yet. Taping practice is restricted anyway but I’m sure if the coaches had their way practice would be closed all the time. Some, like former head coach Danny Barrett, are always a little paranoid about what he called media spies tipping off the opposition. We would always say we had better things to do; besides I want to see if a trick play works.
The CFL player awards we’re held last night. The selection of Andy Fantuz as top Canadian was a no brainer. He became the first Canuck to lead the league in receiving since Dave Sapunjis in ’95 and the first Rider to win since Ray Elgaard in ’92…pretty elite company. Congratulations Andy.
After my live hits were done last night I wandered over to the Spirit of Edmonton. It was rocking pretty good. I saw Ben Hebert there. The Olympic gold medalist with the Kevin Martin rink was a popular photo op and autograph for the fans. Ben is from Regina and had his Rider jersey on with Getzlaf on the back. The two may have played together at some point. Hebert was a star QB at Riffel but quickly found out curling would pay off better for him. I’d say he made the right choice.
I’m going to practice today and hope to do a story on some of the Rider rookies playing in the big game already. Derek Meyers will be doing something and may try to get over and talk to Jordan Eberle. Heard his set up on the game winner last night was a thing of beauty.
The weather is quite spring like now which is good for all concerned including the majority of Rider Nation, the winner of the Commissioner’s Award for contribution to football. Great touch by the league by the way. Sask fans will be arriving all day and before long this place will be cuckoo bananas. Talk to you tonight on Global News.
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