Looking for a new start
Sandro Deangelis has one of the best percentages for kickers in the Canadian Football League, but right now he’s looking for work.
After an entire season spent on the Montreal Alouettes bench, the Niagara Falls native asked to be released by the team after the Alouettes lost to the Hamilton Tiger- Cats in the divisional semifinals.
Ask the Niagara Falls native and former Montreal Alouette what the toughest aspect of being a football player is and, surprisingly, his answer has nothing to do with the nomadic nature of pro sports that now has him looking for his third team in as many years. The one thing that broke his heart in Montreal?
“Watching from the sidelines,” he says, without hesitation. “For many people, being well paid to practise with a pro football three times a week in a city as beautiful as Montreal would be a dream job.
“But for an athlete, for some-
I can.”
Sandro Deangelis one who loves the game, standing and watching from the sidelines is awful. I want to be out there doing what I do.”
And what he does is kick field goals — and usually very well. Deangelis was named the CFL’S outstanding special teams player in 2006. He is a five-time league all-star and was named the outstanding Canadian in Calgary’s 2008 Grey Cup victory. He boasts an accuracy record of 82.8% on his field goal attempts.
It was t hat record t hat brought him to the Ticats in 2010. Wanting to relocate from Alberta to be closer to his family and home base, he signed with Hamilton. But he didn’t bring his big numbers with him. His only season in the Hammer ended with a 76.2% accuracy rating as he missed 10 of his 42 attempts. Apparently those 10 errors were too high a price to pay, and the Tiger- Cats cut Deangelis. Six days later, he was in an Alouettes jersey.
In joining Mont r e a l , Deangelis says he thought he was in an open competition for the job with recently signed Sean Whyte.
“I was led to believe that I would be in competition for the job,” he said. “But that never happened. I wouldn’t have signed if that was the case. I want to play football.”
Deangelis made the move back east to play closer to home, but he says he’s prepared to embrace the nomadic existence of an elite athlete if it means he gets to suit up again ... and he fully expects to kicking when the next football season begins.
“I’m open to going wherever I have to go to play,” he said. “I don’t care if it’s Alaska or Siberia, I’ll play wherever I can.”
It would be a fair assumption that after a tumultuous couple of years in the country’s top football league, that Deangelis would be a little bitter about the hand he’s been dealt, but nothing could be further from the truth.
“I left Calgary for the right reasons. I wanted to be closer to family. I was trying to have my cake and eat it too,” said the 30- year- old. “It was a financial better situation in Calgary than in Hamilton. I was one of the captains, one of the public faces in the team in Calgary, but I take pride in knowing that I left for the right reasons.
“But in Hamilton backfired.”
The kicker, unwilling to blame anyone for his situation, chalks it up to one of the first lessons he learned from his parents: Sometimes life just isn’t fair.
“In some sick way, I’m glad that I’ve had to go through all this in the last two years,” he said. “When, not if, but when, I sign with another team, I’m going to make sure the deal is as solid as it can be in this crazy profession.”
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