It’s hello and goodbye for Esks’ Getzlaf in Regina
The only question for Chris Getzlaf when he boards a plane to Regina on Saturday will be if he’s going to a homecoming or a farewell tour.
The Edmonton Eskimos receiver is returning to his hometown for his first business trip since being released by the Saskatchewan Roughriders over the off-season, in a game that will also be his last in Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field, which is scheduled to close after this season.
“I guess it will be kind of a combination of both, really,” said the 10-year CFL veteran, who spent the previous eight playing with his hometown team after being drafted by the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2007. “It’s the first opportunity to go in there and play as a road team in that stadium and it’s also going to be the last time that I’ll ever play in that stadium.
“Right now, I feel like it’s just a regular football game. It might be a little different, especially pre-game and stuff, when you’re on the opposite side of the field and during the game when you’re on the other sideline. That’s going to have a little different feel to it.”
More than anyone else on the visiting sideline Saturday, Getzlaf has a feel for what is going on in the Roughriders locker-room during what has so far been a one-win season.
“For them to be a 1-10 football team, I think if you actually look at the games, they’re not that kind of team,” he said. “They’ve been in every single game and not a lot of teams who are 1-10 can say that.”
Case in point, the Roughriders took the Eskimos to overtime and lost another by a single score in regulation in their previous meetings this season.
“We’ve played them twice and we’ve come down to the wire both times, but there’s no reason for us to believe that we’re walking in there to play a weak opponent because they’re a good football team,” said Getzlaf, 33.
As a native son of Regina, where he was also an all-Canadian with the University of Regina Rams, Getzlaf doesn’t have to take the same approach most players do when facing a former team that got rid of him.
But he does. And without hesitation too, ever since finding out he didn’t fit in with new head coach and GM Chris Jones’s well-known decree of going with a younger, cheaper roster.
“Oh, no. I absolutely want to go in there and win the football game, and if we crush them, great,” Getzlaf said. “I’m here to win football games and that’s the bottom line, so no matter who the opponent is, we want to go in there and come out with the W.”
That’s not to say Getzlaf doesn’t keep up with the word making its way up and down Victoria Ave. — a.k.a. Main Street — during what’s been a couple of lean years now.
“It’s a passionate group of fans, that’s for sure,” he said. “They always stick with them through thick and thin but I’m sure there’s plenty on the blogs and what not and there’s going to be all kinds of talk and chatter of what should be done, what shouldn’t be done and you name it.”
And he’s more than happy to continue to have ties with the CFL’s most rabid fan base, despite sporting a different shade of green these days. “A few of them definitely have a lot of good comments on Twitter and social media and that type of thing and I truly appreciate that,” Getzlaf said. “It shows what kind of passion they have for the football team and the care they have for the players that play there."