RB C.J. Gable’s first time back in Hamilton after trade to Edmonton
His teammates here always said that C.J. Gable played much better when he had a chip on his shoulder.
Accordingly, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be paying close attention to that No. 2 lined up in the Edmonton Eskimos backfield Thursday night.
Success out west may have diluted his resentment, but that chip is still perched there plain as day.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “I want to play my best all the time to prove what they lost. I think anybody would do that. I play every game hard, but there’s always a little something extra when something like that happens.”
Something like that would be last October’s trade which delivered Gable from the Tiger-Cats, for whom he’d played the better part of five years, to Northern Alberta for two players on the Eskimos’ negotiation list.
June Jones had determined that Alex Green, who’ll be in the Ticats backfield at Tim Hortons Field Thursday, was his running back of choice after he rang up 140 yards rushing in a September game in B.C.
But when Green couldn’t play the next game against Toronto, Gable stepped back in and ran for 157 yards and two touchdowns.
“And the next day, I was traded. I guess it wasn’t good enough,” he recalled Wednesday, with an ironic smile. “I didn’t know what I was doing wrong for them to do that. I never thought I would get traded. I guess new coaches had a new scheme and they wanted a different kind of running back than me for their system.
“I’m not bitter now. I’m over it. I’m in a good position. I get the ball a lot. I’m third in (CFL) rushing. They like giving it to me, I’m not blocking all the time.”
After Gable’s arrival, the Eskimos, who’d lost six in a row, won their final five games plus the Western semifinal before missing a Grey Cup berth with a fourpoint loss in Calgary. The first freshman ever to start at tailback for USC, Gable can run and catch the football and is considered by both the Eskimos and Ticats to be the best blocking back in the league.
“I love having C.J. on our football team,” says Edmonton quarterback Mike Reilly. “He was the spark we needed last year that kind of got us on our run. He’s a great teammate. Obviously, he loves to run the ball, but we ask so much more of him.”
In 2013, Gable was the Eastern nominee for CFL rookie of the year, rushing for 782 yards and grabbing passes for another 598.
He was twice an Eastern allstar but spent much of his Ticat time knocking off pass rushers.
Gable, now 30, played 51 games in black and gold, rushing for 2,372 yards and 17 touchdowns and turning 147 pass receptions into another 1,497 yards and eight more touchdowns.
But he carried the ball an average of only eight times per game in his Hamilton tenure, while the Eskimos have rushed him an average of 15 times per game.
He feels Edmonton coaching and management have been more straightforward with him than the Tiger-Cats had been, but adds, “it feels great to be back in this stadium. It’s just so familiar.
“I enjoyed my time here, how much the fans appreciated us. On bad days or good days they were still here at the stadium. Loud, packed.”
Jones says that players suiting up against a former team “take it to a higher level, and I think C.J. will do that.”
“Oh yeah,” Gable assures him. To which Reilly adds, “He’s a load to bring down, anyway, but when he’s got a little something extra to play for, he’s that much more dangerous. So I expect him to have a great game.”
NOTES: The Ticats still have one of the negotiation list players they received for Gable on their own negotiation list but club policy does not name names . ... The Ticats, through the June Jones Youth Movement, sponsored by LIUNA, will bring Indigenous youth from Hamilton and Six Nations of the Grand River to each of the team’s remaining home games.