Nik Lewis to leave Stamps?

Calgary is loaded with receivers, so 11th year with club is up in air

CALGARY — Nik Lewis was busy shaking hands, one arm slung around the Grey Cup as a throng of Nik’s Nation encircled him on the street near city hall.

It’s impossible to think of a more popular Stampeder these days — but the question of playing an 11th season in the only CFL home he’s ever known hangs in the air, open for debate.

Is there room in Calgary in 2015 for Lewis?

Of the 13 free-agents that GM John Hufnagel must deal with this off-season, Lewis might not be the most vital, but he is indisputably the most delicate.

We’re talking about a man who, over his first nine campaigns in red and white, peeled off 1,000-yard pass-receiving seasons as easily as peeling sections from a Christmas orange — someone who averaged 81 catches a year and hit with ferocity.

On the field at BC Place on Saturday, one calendar day in advance of the 20-16 white-knuckler over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats that landed Lewis his second Grey Cup ring, he was asked how he envisioned his future.

“More 1,000 yard seasons!” he bellowed with a familiar bravado that has grown more entertaining through the years.

Will they be in Cowtown, though? Hufnagel’s belief in that possibility is the only one that ultimately matters.

As of this moment, there is a ridiculously deep queue of quality ‘international’ — read: American-born — pass catchers jockeying for playing time next year.

Marquay McDaniel, of course. Mo Price, Joe West and returner Sederrick Cunningham. Eric Rogers was the find of the late season. They like the cut of Kamar Jorden’s jib and Jeff Fuller, out since October because of a knee injury, might just be the most tantalizing talent of the lot.

Throw ‘ nationals’ — read: Canadians — Simon Charbonneau-Campeau, Brad Sinopoli, Jabari Arthur and Anthony Parker into the blender and the terrain seems more crowded than a London Tube station at rush-hour.

What is beyond dispute is that this season Lewis bought in like never before.

“I got to be a leader on this team ... And we got to our ultimate goal. Personally, it wasn’t the great year, but I grew up a lot. I’ve had to grow up a lot. I think that’s made me a better person, a better teammate.”

Unlike the happy face everyone publicly puts on it, the transformation must have been bumpy in spots. Lewis is far too proud to be marginalized without protest.

Eventually, though, he came to the realization that it was in his, and his team’s, best interests.

“I made an obligation to those guys in that lockerroom. That obligation was to work as a hard as I could every day, to come to practice every day with a positive attitude and to help the people around me get better. “And that’s what I did. “I can’t worry about myself all the time. That’s not what a team game is all about. My life, up until, what?, Aug. 17, 2013, was great (the day he suffered a broken leg). It was easy. I’d go out and put up 1,000-yard seasons, easy. It was easy.

“When I got hurt that day, it changed a lot. My position in Calgary. Everything. So just to fight back to this moment, man” — the Cup held in his hands — “is awesome.”

You don’t doubt the sincerity of that statement. Then, surveying the remnants of the city’s Stampeders rally, Lewis grinned.

“Hope to see that Stanley Cup in Calgary, too, when I get back in June.”

What’s clear is that Lewis believes there are more seasons left in him. Naturally, he’d prefer they were in Calgary.

“Of course,” he replied to the question. “I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. But it’s the game, it’s the sport.

“Next week before I leave to go back to Texas, I’ll sit down with Huff and I’ll sit down with Dave (Dickenson) and figure something out.”

It should make for interesting conversation.