Ticats will have anthem policy June 1

Hamilton Tiger-Cats head coach June Jones says that sometime before the first exhibition game June 1, he will address his players about conduct during the national anthem.

The team is bound by, and adheres to, the CFL’s stance: which is that freedom of expression during anthems is allowed for its players.

Unlike many NFL players who’ve regularly protested by not standing during the American anthem, CFL players haven’t protested or boycotted the pregame Canadian anthem. The Saskatchewan Roughriders did, however, link arms and raise fists last season in support of the major protest movement in the U.S. league.

This all comes in the wake of the NFL’s controversial — to say the least — announcement Wednesday that if players don’t stand for the playing of the U.S. anthem their team will be penalized 15 yards. However, any player may remain in the lockerroom during the anthem if he so chooses.

Jones said last year that he believes players should stand for anthems but emphasized at Thursday’s practice that was an opinion only. He says that as a former NFL coach he doesn’t have a feeling “either way” about the NFL ruling but “the bottom line is they made a rule so everybody needs to abide by it.”

Jones was accurate when he said any official policy here on conduct during an anthem could not be decided on personal feeling. He misspoke slightly in saying that it had to be a club decision, because the CFL has already provided that directive for all its clubs. This week the CFL rereleased its stand on anthems, with commissioner Randy Ambrosie’s 2017 statement: “We cherish our anthem because of the values it has come to represent. One of those values is freedom of expression. Regardless of whether we liked it or agreed with it, we would absolutely respect our players’ right to express their views in this way, which is peaceful and does not disrupt our game in any way.”

Under political and fan pressure the NFL moved this week to curb players not standing for The Star Spangled Banner which had happened regularly since thenSan Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others did not stand during pre-game anthems in 2016 to protest against ill-treatment of African-Americans and other minorities. Ticats starting tackle Tony Washington, who grew up in Louisiana and Texas, takes issue with the NFL’s new policy. He says the treatment of minorities in the U.S. and the new NFL policy constitute “an injustice. Everybody (in the U.S.) is trying to ignore it and wants us to be quiet. You had Olympic athletes who used their platform to voice their opinion back in the ’60s and ’70s, and for them to try to take it away from the guys now it’s almost like saying ‘We don’t really care. Don’t do it on our time. Do it on your own time.’

“It’s a big issue and the NFL has shown that they could really care less.”

Washington, who never played in the NFL, has played in the CFL for Edmonton, Toronto and Hamilton. He says that living in Canada for the better part of seven years, he hasn’t seen the discrimination he sees in the U.S.

Johnny Manziel, who has publicly supported Kaepernick, said Wednesday he was paying no attention to the NFL’s policy because “I’m in the CFL now.”

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For the third time in the last four practice days, there was on-field conflict at Tiger-Cat practice.

On Monday and Tuesday, isolated confrontations stemmed from the defence being physically overaggressive, but that stopped in time for Wednesday’s practice. On Thursday, June Jones pointed out, safety Mike Daly had Speedy Banks lined up but pulled away, just as Jones had demanded his defenders do.

Thursday, near the end of a hot first half of practice, defensive end Connor McGough and offensive lineman Casey Blaser took a couple of quick swings at each other, and shortly thereafter defensive lineman Davon Coleman and running back Nikita Whitlock got into an extended shouting match on the sideline. Just a minute or two after that a couple of shouting players on the sidelines had to be separated.

But Jones emphasized those were different than the two incidents earlier in the week which resulted in first, Luke Tasker, and second, Jeremiah Masoli, taken to the turf.

“That’s training camp,” he said of Thursday’s brouhahas, “and it was a long practice.”