Eskimos settle into camp routine
SPRUCE GROVE — No matter how much the players love the game, the routine can quickly get monotonous.
Get up, have breakfast, go to meetings, practise, take a break, practise again. Break, lunch, more meetings, sleep, study the playbook, dinner, sleep and do it all again.
As well as training camp is going for the Edmonton Eskimos — head coach Chris Jones has been notably pleased with how hard his players are working and with how well they’re picking up his systems — by Day 6 the players start to crave some change.
“We’re a week into it, almost a week. It seems like a month,” quarterback Mike Reilly said on Friday. “It’s like Groundhog Day, but it’s fun. You love playing football, but you come out here and you do the same thing every day — even though our coaching staff does a good job of mixing things up and keeping variety and keeping everyone on their toes.”
Change, even if it’s a small one, is on the horizon. Saturday is the Eskimos’ fan day. The team will spend the majority of a two-hour session from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at Fuhr Sports Park in a mock scrimmage setting, according to head coach Chris Jones.
“We are going to have the officials and it’ll be good for the first time to have to play within the new rules that we’ve put in place as a league,” Jones said. “It’ll be a mock scrimmage type of deal where we have A’s on A’s and then we have a kicking team and B’s on B’s, that type of thing.”
The A’s and B’s identify which groups the players have been placed in at this time.
Jones mentioned on Friday that he’s already seeing his players getting restless, competing against one another twice daily since camp opened on Sunday.
“Fan day is a nice day because it’s that midpoint between the beginning of camp and your first preseason game,” Reilly said. “It gives the young guys an opportunity to see what the speed (of the CFL) is like. It’s still not like a regularseason game. It’s still a lot slower, but the pace is generally faster than a practice day and the guys are excited, so it’s always fun.”
While the event is held in Spruce Grove because of the Women’s World Cup soccer tournament moving the Eskimos out of Commonwealth Stadium, the team will still provide its usual sideline festivities. The Eskimos’ cheer team and mascots will be on hand as will interactive family activities and a concession BBQ. An autograph session with the players follows practice.
Reilly sees change in CFL culture
Fan day generally overlaps Edmonton’s pride parade. With the Eskimos’ training camp just a week old, it limits any kind of involvement from the players. As one of the CFL’s You Can Play ambassadors for almost a year, Reilly said he’s seen positive change in the league with sensitivity to LGBTQ people.
“I think guys are more aware of what they say and how they act and it’s not just with You Can Play, it’s with our culture as a whole,” Reilly said. “It’s talked about a lot more and people are understanding that they’re going to be held accountable for the types of things they say. People are more sensitive to the fact that you never know who’s in the room with you when you’re saying something and who you might be offending.
“Within the CFL, it certainly has become more apparent and (players are) policing themselves and each other. I think that’s how society as a whole is going.”