Well there’s the answer to my question about who’ll be Elks #2 QB
Not too much of a surprise. I thought Hervey would have his eye on Powell if he did bring in a #2.
The team signed 6 players today, all except 1 to multi-year deals, it will be great to have some continuity for the next couple of years, let this team grow together. Good job by Ed and the guys!
Picked up rec’s Mack, Robustelli and O’Leary-Orange but lost Gittens. A healthy Steven Dunbar could still help this team. Looks like a better group than we started with last year.
Yes, I agree that should be a better group than we started with last year. It’s too bad Steven Dunbar got injured last season. I had thought he was on pace for a good season. Maybe the EE will bring him back at the right price if he doesn’t go elsewhere. Although, Hillaire was looking good in the short time he was here last season. It could be that Hillaire will really break through this season. It seemed Cody Fajardo was developing some chemistry with him.
Great to see Catellier get the ST coach role. He’s been Kilams assistant for a few years now. Came over from Calgary last season.
Not that there’s much to worry about on the teams. Elks have one of the best groups in the league.
Weakest link is Blanchard, but I’m a huge believer in his abilities as a kicker. He’s only going to get better.
I’m happy with Blanchard too. He was getting more consistent last season and he does have a very good leg. That’s likely half the battle. I think he will keep getting better as you say.
I haven’t heard that our punter, Jake Julien signed anywhere. So I’m assuming he is back.
That’s too bad, but not really surprising. I was thinking he was likely on the hot seat. I had thought he may get to camp, but perhaps they are doing Ivey a favour giving him a chance to sign elsewhere now. I wonder if he winds up in Hamilton. It will be interesting to see where Ivey goes. If it’s Hamilton, I may start cheering for a few Cats this season (along with our EE of course) as some favourites have signed there.
He is only 30 
I thought he was a tad young for retirement. Maybe his injury was worse than we knew. Or perhaps he didn’t get the offer he was looking for.
My guess is that it’s a little bit of both combined with a lot of pondering whether the non-glamourous side (travel without time to explore, the repeat injury risk) of being a football player is worth it.
I think this is a good guess.
Also something often not discussed at length, with the associated facts to some degree private, is that not all injury recoveries work out well or work out for that long.
As we are at the highest level of competition, any margin short of full recovery will show in practice.
Perhaps some of you know this even not as pro athletes in your recovery from an injury.
Whatever has healed is most often not quite the same. One exception can be both ankles after their sprains, which with no guarantees, can actually be stronger after rehabilation.
In modern times there are even more success stories for recovery from more serious injuries, but they are overall fewer and only also with hard and exhaustive rehabilation, which includes solid exercise that goes beyond what would be a regular exercise program.
If you have been injured seriously before and needed to recover or even have had to fight off some disease, you know that recovery is now your new job, whatever other job you have, and that the payoff in full is not guaranteed. So imagine for a pro athlete at the extremely high level of demanded performance!
Then in football we have with the speed positions at receiver, defensive back, linebackers, and running back the wheels starting to fall off players somewhere even as early as 28 for running backs who have played a heavy load and around 30 for the others, with the separation often at hand for those who train even harder than they trained when young so as to still run circles around those trying to win their jobs.
Of course those of us older are often cheering for those few at 30 or above who still manage to be at it showing up those cocky young guys out of college, but hey that guy was many of us at age 22 or so as well.
Very good points that we don’t always think of. Great post!
Kind of cool. I am dating myself, but I watched a few EE games in my youth at Clarke Stadium.