Ticats rookie comes home
The first football game Ron Omara played at Lansdowne Park was, believe it or not, just two weeks ago.
The second represents his team’s chance to qualify for a Grey Cup game in 2015.
The 24-year-old backup linebacker and special-teams player from the Aylmer sector of Gatineau will have 15 relatives and friends cheering him on from the stands of TD Place stadium when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats take on the Ottawa Redblacks on Sunday.
“Every game that I go into, I approach it with the same mindset, but going home, obviously, it means a lot to play in front of people that I’ve grown up with, my family,” Omara said Friday in a telephone interview following the Ticats’ final full practice of the year at Hamilton’s Tim Hortons Field.
“I think there’s a little more incentive this game, especially with it being the Eastern final.”
Following four years at St. Francis Xavier University, the TigerCats selected Omara in the fourth round (29th overall) of the CFL college draft in May. He dressed for 11 of 18 regular-season games, making four special-teams tackles, including one against the Redblacks in Ottawa on Nov. 7.
He says the Tiger-Cats (10-8) are “excited” and “hungry” coming into their post-season showdown against the Redblacks (12-6) who defeated them twice at the end of the regular season to clinch first in the East and home field for final.
“Pretty much everyone expected to be here in the Eastern final, and our team is pretty pumped to go out there and do what they need to do,” Omara said.
His last division final was a 29-7 loss for St. FX against Mount Allison in the 2014 Atlantic University Sport Loney Bowl. He felt much better after the X-Men defeated the Mounties 14-12 in this year’s conference final, earning a spot in the Uteck Bowl national semifinal against the UBC Thunderbirds on Saturday at Antigonish, N.S.
Similarly, he’s well aware how close the Tiger-Cats are to the championship game in Winnipeg on Nov. 29, not that he was willing to make a prediction on Friday.
“Ottawa is a good team, we’re a very good team,” Omara said, “and I know that we want to win, and that’s the ultimate goal. Whatever way we get it done, that’s the goal.”