Game Re-Cap: Saskatchewan

Well we didn't get the result we were hoping for, but all in all we got a productive experience out of our trip to Saskatoon. The first game of the season is usually full of mental mistakes, and we made a lot of them. Throughout the first half of the game, we looked like a team who had less than a weeks-worth of practices under our belt; which of course was actually the case. We were down 14-3 at half-time, but came out in the second half and began to impose our tempo on the game. We achieved this with many of our younger guys rotating into the game, who proved that they deserve a spot on our roster. In the fourth quarter, Liam Mahoney threw a long touchdown pass to Dan Rodriguez, which pulled us to within a point of Saskatchewan, 14-13. We had the momentum in our favor, but turned the ball over in our own end later in the fourth, and they put us away with a major score a few plays later. 

So the final was 21-13 for Saskatchewan. We did want to win the game, but we learnt a lot about our team in the loss. We were able to evaluate our new guys, and how they respond to certain situations. Some players showed that they're willing to sacrifice themselves on special teams, and we addressed the situations that we were slow to react to pre-snap and during the play. And though our team wasn't as mentally sharp as they were, we can take many positives from our inter-squad practice from the previous day. Our O-line and D-line went one-on-one with their opposing lines, and the rest of our team worked a pass-shell drill against their team. In both drills we performed very well, and we proved to ourselves that we have the physical ability to play with and defeat anybody in the country. As the old saying goes though, "Football is 10% physical, and 90% mental," so even though we feel we are contenders to go very deep into the playoffs this season, we realize that we still have a lot of hard work to do before we get there. 

We stayed in the residence on campus throughout the trip, and had a lot of free time to hang out with each other. We took over a couple of T.V. lounges, and usually had either the Olympics or the NFL Network on. There's never a shortage of jokes on our team, and the guys stayed true to form throughout the weekend (somehow the most repetitive jokes seemed to get funnier the more we heard them). 

As I'm writing this blog though, we've already been home and back to training camp for 2 days- puttin' in that hard work I was talking about. It really makes me appreciate that free time we had, and it already seems like it happened a long time ago!

Stingers football training camp

Training camp is only a few days away now, and I’m itching to get back on the field. Improving in the weight room is always satisfying, but the real pay-off comes when you put on the pads and are able to run faster and hit harder. Traditionally, training camp is a grueling couple of weeks full of meetings, lifting and two-a-days. It is the perfect format to insure that a football team is prepared for the upcoming season not only because of the amount of preparation time we squeeze into a short period, but also because our lives are simplified to the point where football is our only concern. At the end of the day, the only thing I look forward to is a big meal, and getting my body rested up for the next day.

This year’s camp will be much more exciting than any of the previous camps I’ve ever attended. Coach has scheduled us to play an exhibition game in Saskatoon against the Saskatchewan Huskies. We’ll also get the opportunity to have an inter-squad practice with them. Saskatchewan is a perennial contender in the CIS, and this will give us a great opportunity to tune-up for our regular season against a quality opponent. We’ll only be away from the 21rst to the 24th, and we’ll pack as much football into those 4 days as possible, before continuing with our training camp on the 25th. This trip should also alleviate some of the mental fatigue that might otherwise build up throughout camp. I’ve learned how to cope with this factor over the past 3 camps, but I can imagine how a trip like this will really benefit some of our younger players.