It’s been 639 days since the Saskatoon Hilltops last played a game, an 11-6 win over the Langley Rams to secure the franchise’s sixth straight Canadian Bowl title.
With so many weeks, days, hours and minutes between snaps, the team is just happy to be back on the field, preparing for the upcoming season.
“You know, we’re all pretty excited,” quarterback Doug Fleming said. “We’ve got the juices flowing a lot out here, we’re just ready to go, it’s been so long.”
“It’s sort of been surreal,” head coach Tom Sargeant explained. “Because when you’ve been away from something for 16 months, you sort of forget. But you know, once we got back out on the grass and we started getting a little collisions and all that, the energy came back.”
“It kind of felt like it was never coming back, sometimes,” fifth-year offensive tackle Mason Ochs said. “You know, you miss a year, and you kind of wonder if they’re even going to give you the year back.
“So, just to be back out where with all of the guys, it’s amazing.”
Even for a coach as decorated and long-tenured as Sargeant, the 2021 season brings with it something the veteran coach has never experienced.
This season his roster will be younger than ever, with just three fifth-year players penciled into the depth chart, a byproduct of the lost 2020 campaign.
“If anything, we’re a little more charged up,” Sargeant explained. “We’re coaching harder, and demanding more, practicing harder, and putting more time in the film room. So, hopefully in the long run we create a team, develop a team that makes us all proud by the end of the season.”
Of the team’s three returning players, two play on the offensive line.
Lined up at left-tackle, providing protection to newly-minted starting quarterback Doug Fleming’s blindside will be Mason Ochs — who will be depended on not only to protect his young QB, but also provide leadership and experience in the locker room.
“It’s nice to have a voice being hear,” Ochs explained. “I mean, you kind of dream about it in your first year, and to get here, it’s kind of surreal.”
“When you look at the three fifth-years, number one you’ve got Mason Ochs,” Sargeant said. “I think he’s the best player in the PFC (Prairie Football Conference), best player in the CJFL (Canadian Junior Football League). He’s a dominant player, and he’s certainly gonna make some money at left tackle.”
Despite the team’s inexperience, its head coach says it’s full of energy — energy they hope will let them send off their seniors with a winning season.
“It means a lot,” Fleming said. “Especially, you know, there’s three guys that we’ve got to send out, so, it’s a little more personal. You know each one a little better, so we want to send all these guys out as fifth-year champions, and that’s always the goal.”
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