TIGER-CATS CENTRE MIKE FILER
Tiger-Cats won’t be re-signing centre, and longest-serving player
will not be re-signing. He leaves a big hole in the franchise and community
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats will be moving on without their longestserving player.
Mike Filer will not be offered a contract, The Spectator has learned, a development that will reverberate emotionally within the organization, Ticat Nation and the broader Hamilton community.
After nine years here, the 30-yearold centre, team leader and starter since 2014, is eligible to sign with any other Canadian Football League team when free agency begins Tuesday at noon.
“These types of decisions are always tough for an organization, and unfortunately there’s never a good time for them. This is very, very tough,” head coach Orlondo Steinauer said, with clear sadness. “Mike is a true professional, with an outstanding work ethic. He’s heavily committed to the community and the city of Hamilton. He was let go by the team that originally drafted him (Calgary 2012), then came here and he’s a served as a true encouragement and inspirational story to so many Canadian players: That you can turn what appears to be a negative into a huge positive.”
The Ticats’ succession plan at centre had already been in place and Filer was not only aware of it, he has helped all-star right guard Darius Ciraco with some of the nuances of a position he played in college and will now take over as a pro. Among the candidates to replace Ciraco at guard are Jesse Gibbon, selected No. 2 overall in the 2019 draft, Coulter Woodmansey who topped the 2020 class, Kay Okafor and Mac’s Joe Bencze.
Filer said Monday he preferred not to comment yet, but did say, “I cannot thank the Ticat organization enough for the opportunity. Bob Young, Scott Mitchell, Coach 0, (co-managers) Drew Allemang and Shawn Burke and Tommy (Condell, offensive co-ordinator).”
The personable Filer grew up in Brantford as an all-round athlete and Ticats fan, and had worked on the security team at the old Ivor Wynne Stadium only a year before running onto the same field as a Hamilton player. He willingly surrendered his No. 68 when the Ticats retired it in honour of Angelo Mosca in 2015, and moved to No. 51.
Filer has made an enormous contribution to the larger Hamilton community as he lent his name, face and money to a wide variety of social and health programs.
In his 2018 Mike’s Manscaping Challenge, he grew his beard and hair long and then publicly cut them to raise $23,000 for Juravinski Cancer Centre, where his late mother, Kim, had received treatment and care. He is an ambassador for the Be More Than A Bystander antibullying campaign and an integral part of Hearts in the Huddle youth outreach. He’s been a guest coach for many local teams, visited countless schools and as a face of the team greeted fans warmly at every practice, every game.
He was the de facto leader of the “Tim Hortons Generation,” that strong core group who were with the Ticats when they moved into the new stadium on Labour Day 2014 and stayed. Filer was the only one who had also played for the Ticats in Ivor Wynne Stadium, before the ’12 demolition of the iconic east-end stadium made way for Tim Hortons Field.
Jeremiah Masoli, Brandon Banks, Simoni Lawrence, Mike Daly and Ted Laurent from that group are still Ticats, as are three — Delvin Breaux, Courtney Stephen and Rico Murray — who have spent time elsewhere in between.
The Tiger-Cats re-signed Filer for the later-cancelled 2020 season after his outstanding ’19 campaign. Before that season, he had lost significant weight and reworked his technique but still began the year as backup to Mathieu Girard, then American Demetrius Rhaney, but when the former was injured and the latter had to attend to personal problems Filer stepped up and captained an outstanding offensive line, the vanguard of the league’s most productive offence.
“We challenged Mike again two years ago to compete with other guys,” Steinauer said. “He made the most of his opportunity and responded just the way you think he would respond.”
Extremely well.