On Tuesday, May 25, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats hosted their annual season preview conference call with national media. Ticats CEO, Scott Mitchell, as well as Vice-President of Football Operations, General Manager and Head Coach, Kent Austin sat down to answer the media’s questions. Ticats.ca has provided a full recap of the call:
Scott Mitchell: Great thanks very much. It’s Scott Mitchell here. Thank you very much everybody for joining us today. It’s obviously an exciting time with training camp just around the corner. And for us particularly in Hamilton, it’s a great time to be part of the Ticats organization. Coming off back-to-back Eastern Division Championships, which is a tremendous tribute to Coach Austin, his coaching staff, and our players, combined with a brand new, phenomenal, state-of-the-art facility in Tim Hortons Field, I’m not sure there’s been a better, or brighter point of this franchise in the last half century. Tim Hortons Field, is obviously as you all probably know by now, finally been delivered to us under substantial completion, which enables us to move into the facility and take it over for ourselves. That’s exciting. But clearly, despite the challenges we had last year, the football staff, the players, and our executive team, and business operations team did a phenomenal job being able to produce an undefeated season at Tim Hortons Field, which clearly, we’re excited about continuing into 2015. I think that the great thing about Tim Hortons Field is not only has it changed our business, but it’s changed our fan experience. Anybody who was there last year, I think understands the experience that the fans, our partners, and for the most part the media had last year, especially when it was complete, it is a completely dynamic, incredibly exciting atmosphere, very social for our fans, and the response we got was overwhelming in terms of the experience despite the stadium not being fully complete.
And I think that experience and the reviews we’ll get this year will only be enhanced by all the features that are now there that weren’t there last year. We’ll continue to invest in Tim Hortons Field in 2015 and beyond, to make sure it’s the best fan experience in the CFL. And really our standard is, it’s as good a fan experience as you’re going to get anywhere in North America for a sports event. I think the expectations for this year is not only capitalizing on our great performance on the field, but every game we had sold out last year for what was available to us. And we’re certainly excited to be able to continue that on. And our expectation is we’ll have a sold-out season at Tim Hortons Field, which has a capacity of about approximately 24,000 people. One of the things that’s been tremendous for us, has been a real eye opener for us is the demand and appetite for premium opportunities. We weren’t sure when we constructed Tim Hortons Field, what the sweet spot would be for suites and the amenities, like club seats and the premium experience in every category. We’re not only sold out but have a waiting list for suites and club seats. We’ve got 1,100 club seats that we have a waiting list for. We’ve got one of the higher end premium packages in the league in a property we call the Caretakers Club that is over $3,000 a ticket. We’ve been able to sell that out and have a waiting list for that. It’s a great experience for our fans. And from a partnership perspective, we’re sold out inside the stadium and trying to create new assets for our corporate partners, having sold out all of the present inventory that is available.
So obviously we’re excited. We clearly would have had the chance to be profitable in 2014 for the first time in probably 40 years. That didn’t happen due to the disappointing stadium delays, but our expectation is the Tiger-Cats will be a profitable franchise in 2015. Having said all that, it all comes down to a single most important factor in our organization that we talk about every single day, and that’s about the football team. It’s all about the performance of the football team, and getting Coach Austin and his staff, and the players all the resources they need to be successful. I don’t think I have to tell anybody who’s been a part of the franchise in the past two years, the incredible obstacles that Coach Austin and the players have had to overcome. Despite that, they’ve won the East two years in a row. I think we are tied with Calgary for the most playoff appearances in the last 4 years with 7. We’ve really raised the expectations around the franchise to the point where, you know, all we’re about is competing for and winning championships. And I think Coach Austin, and the players, and the staff clearly exemplified that. So having said that, I’ll turn it over to Coach Austin to talk about the football team.
Coach Austin: I’d just briefly like to say that one of the things that we believe in is as much continuity as possible. I know that seems counterintuitive considering the number of players we’ve played in the last 2 years, but talking more specifically to the staff. And how we’ve been able to keep a real quality staff in place. And a lot of our success, if not all of our success, on the football side is really due less to me and more to the fact that I have great individuals around me. And so philosophically, we believe in hiring the best people we can. People that are better than ourselves, and I certainly have that on our staff, with coordinators all the way down to the position coaches. So, having that continuity on the football side is really important for us to try and maintain a level of excellence that we’re trying to get to, and trying to be as competitive with respect to accomplishing the single goal of just winning championships as Scott alluded to. We think that the continuity goes a long way in establishing at least the ability to perform at a high level year in and year out. That said, I think we’re in pretty good shape with our roster. We’re like every other team, we’re always trying to get better and we’re going to try to get better where we can. But we’ve got a good, young, competitive team that has a lot of experience together now. And I think the evidence of that is that we had less changes, especially in free agency period last year than we had previously, and I think that’s a testament to really settle in on players that we feel like can compete and win football games for us. So yeah, a lot of good people here. It’s an unbelievable organization to work for. And Scott, and Bob, and the rest of the organization provide us the resource that we need to win and to compete, and that’s all we ask for as coaches. We’re a no excuse football team. So we don’t really like many excuses. And we’ve got a lot of solution providers here on both sides of the organization, which makes it a great, quality company to come work for everyday. And to wake up and be excited about coming to work. And I can speak for the rest of the staff, they all feel the same way. So with that said, I’ll just open up for questions.
Convener: We will now take questions from the telephone line. The first question is from Rick Zamperin from AM900 CHML in Hamilton.
Rick Zamperin: Hi Scott, hi Kent. Thanks for coming out today and giving us a brief preview of the 2015 season. Sounds like an exciting one. My question more so for Scott, and it revolves around the Grey Cup, obviously this year in Winnipeg and next year in Toronto. And the question that fans want to know is when will Hamilton host the Grey Cup? When do you hope to host the Championship Game here in the CFL?
Scott Mitchell: Well our hope is to host a Grey Cup, and more than one Grey Cup over time. But I think everybody understands how lucrative the Grey Cup has become, not just to the host team, but clearly to the host city, the province, and the region that they’re in. I think every Grey Cup in the last few years has seen an economic impact to the city and region of north to 100 million dollars or certainly close to. You know, it’s Canada’s single largest annual event. And that produces a lot of competition, in terms of the bid process and putting together a winning bid. And I think finally with the stadium being finished, and delivered to the City, it enables us to start being strategic about opportunities like Grey Cup. There’s clearly a lot of great groups, and ownership groups, and teams in line to bid for that, but we certainly feel working together with the City, the Region, and the Province, we can put can put together a very competitive bid. But, that’s gonna take some time.
Rick Zamperin: Alright thanks.
Convenor: The next question is from Chris Schultz from TSN.
Chris Schultz: Good afternoon gentlemen. Two questions- one for Coach Austin. You’re quarterbacks. The back-up quarterbacks. What is your approach to trying to get a quarterback ready? Is it that you overload him to see how he reacts and then kind of go from there in your assessment? Do you bring him along easy so to speak? Cause you don’t have much time before your first game. And for Scott, the Pan Am Games, do they change anything about the stadium? Kent first if you please.
Kent Austin: Yeah Chris, it’s a good question. I think it really depends on the individual. And how well he learns and how he does learn. Unfortunately in sports, especially in football, and in our situation in the last couple years, where we’ve had, it’s not complaint, but we’ve had less time on the field and less time on walk through because of the travel time to and from our practice scenarios. You’re just not gonna get enough reps, especially in the single most important position in all of sports, in my opinion, to be prepared. I mean even Zach doesn’t get enough reps being our starting quarterback. So, we implement a lot of visualization techniques. I teach them how to watch film properly. How to go through the process of preparing mentally without actually taking a rep. I think it’s very, very important. We’re big believers in that. But, that being said, there’s always so many reps that you can distribute. So it’s really important that our quarterbacks stay behind our guys that’s taking the rep at that time, and mentally go through the same process every single play, regardless of the period that we’re in to determine how they would have executed that play. And to make those mental notes, so when we get back and evaluate the film process, and I ask them the proper questions, I can determine whether or not they really were paying attention. So there’s little techniques to try to keep them accountable with respect to their preparation, especially when you have an install day, for example, they come back the next day in a meeting prior to going out on the field, there’s testing environments, getting up on the board, putting film on that I can determine how hard they actually studied the night before. And it doesn’t go well if they didn’t study the night before. So there’s just all kinds of techniques that we try and implement. Some are better than others and some players respond better than others. It just depends on their psychological and emotional make up. And you gotta be able to teach a guy according to how he learns best and how he responds to those techniques.
Scott Mitchell: And Chris S., for the Pan Am Games, not at all. There’s no impact to us. In fact we’ve got a tremendous, how we call it, a non-financial partnership with Toronto 2015. It’s been tremendous to work with them. And obviously we’re very gratified to be having Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, because of the Pan Am Games. So anything we can do to support that, we certainly will. But in terms of an impact to the stadium, I think the only impact that it’s gonna have is it’s gonna show how great the facility is. Not only for the Women’s National team final prep game on Friday night here, but for soccer and international states throughout the Pan Am Games. It’s more than just a football facility. It’s a phenomenal dual-purpose facility for football, for soccer, and for concerts as we saw last year for our tremendous Keith Urban concert. I don’t think there’ll be any impact whatsoever other than augmentation to the stadium. And I think it’s gonna produce an incredibly exciting wild atmosphere for our home opener on August 3rd against the team up the road called the Toronto Argos.
Chris Schultz: Great thanks guys.
Convener: The next question is from Dan Ralph from the Canadian Press.
Dan Ralph: Thank you very much. And I’ll echo Chris’ sentiments, gentlemen thank you very much for your time. Kent, can you just expand about the last 2 years and the lessons that this organization has learned, reaching the Grey Cup the last 2 years and unfortunately having to come up short? I mean are there lessons learned in that?
Kent Austin: Sure there are. There’s lessons learned from all experiences. We kind of have a philosophy here that you, good, bad, indifferent, you can learn from every environment that you’ve been in. You can learn from winning sometimes, more than you can from losing. It’s not just the challenges. I mean every team has challenges. You know, we’re no different from any other team just of cause what we went through in the last 2 years. There’s other challenges with other teams we didn’t experience. The thing that’s important is focusing on the process of getting better. And the process of constant improvement. And we believe that if you put those processes in place from an individual player up to the individual unit, collectively, and then up to collectively as a team, and an organization, as long as you’re achieving a pattern of behavior of constant improvement, then the results always take care of themselves.
Dan Ralph: Thank you.
Convener: The next question is from Kirk Penton from the Winnepeg Sun.
Kirk Penton: Yes, this question is for Kent. Just wondering about Peter Dyaskowski, his health, and the addition of Ryan Bomben. What does that do to the ratio on the offensive line?
Kent Austin: Excellent question. First of all, Peter’s doing really well. He participated in our OTA. He’s in as good a shape as I’ve seen him since I’ve been here. He’s slimmed down. He’s very strong as everybody knows already, naturally. He’s moving very very well. He’s worked really hard at getting prepared for this season. I’m really proud of him and good for him and good for us. You know as a result, we expect him to play well. Obviously he’s gotta get back into it. He’s been out for a long time. But he’s a veteran player. He’s very bright. He cares. He wants to win. And all of that is shown in his off season preparation and where he’s got himself to physically. Ryan, gives us an opportunity to, yes to change our ratio. I don’t think that’s a secret to anybody. We’ll see how it plays out. He’s not just another starter for us upfront. But he has versatility for us to move and play 3 different positions. So in the event that there’s injury, which we all experience, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to change our ratio. As he can pop out to tackle or move down and snap the ball at center. So it was very, very important that we had a proven player at his level of athleticism and ability to compete and prove that he can play at a really, really high level to add to our offensive line to affect not just the ratio, but other areas of a football team, and how we can figure things out offensively as well.
Convener: The next question is from Drew Edwards from the Hamilton Spectator.
Drew Edwards: Gentlemen, my question is for Scott. Scott, I’m wondering if you could give us an update at all on what the season ticket numbers might be for Tim Hortons Field at this point.
Scott Mitchell: Drew, I appreciate you asking, cause you’ve asked for 7 years straight and I’ve never given you an answer. But, I think it’s summed up by the fact that I said our expectations are for it to be sold out. We’ve got a market increase, substantial increase in season tickets, from where we were from our final season at Ivor Wynn Stadium. I think what’s interesting for us though, is that while we maintained the pricing, particularly the low end pricing for our entry level season seat holders, I think some of our season seats holders are still paying as low as $159 or $169 a ticket for season seats. Our average mean of our season seat holder is almost doubled in terms of the average price they’re paying. So, it’s not just the substantial number of season seats that we’ve sold, it’s the simple fact that the average person coming in and paying for the seats is astronomical compared to what it was. And that’s all about, again Tim Hortons Field, and the fan experience inside of Tim Hortons Field.
Convener: The next question is from Curtis Rush from the Toronto Star.
Curtis Rush: Yeah hi. This question is for Kent. Kent, could you expand a little bit about on the continuity of your coaching staff and what it means. Other teams aren’t as lucky as you are and had a lot of turnover in the coaching staff. Can you just expand on what it brings to the players and what are the challenges if you don’t have that continuity?
Kent Austin: Yeah sure. I’ve just been very fortunate, honestly. We’re in a profession where we understand that there’s a transient nature to our profession and we all experience that as head coaches in losing quality coaches. And it’s not that our coaches don’t have other opportunities, they do. But fortunately, they’ve been committed here, at least up to this point, and really love their jobs, love who they work for and with, and really have a strong desire to win a championship here. So there’s a lot of factors that are pulling them back in, not that they’re needed to pull back in, but a lot of factors in keeping them here that are very attractive in working here. And the environment that we have here as an overall organization, as an outstanding environment, and a pleasure to come and work for. We let our coaches coach. We empower them to coach. We don’t have a top-down hierarchical structure. I’m just a part of this, I have a role to play, just like everybody else has a role to play, and every role’s important. Our coaches understand that and they really embody the qualities of that without having to be taught. That’s why we want them here. With respect to players, you know the influence they have on their players, gains overtime. Just like anybody else’s influence. It becomes more pervasive. The more that you’re with a player. Especially as the trustworthiness that you’re creating with that player increases. And generally speaking, the trustworthiness will increase over time as long as you’re authentic in what you believe and how you communicate and teach your players. Our players trust our coaches and our coaches trust their players. We keep each other accountable for performance and improvement. But we’re in an environment where they can really flourish as players and as coaches.
Curtis Rush: Kent, I’m wondering if I can add one more question, as a quarterback question for you? You retired I believe, it was around 33 years old, in your day. Ricky Ray is 35 and come off shoulder surgery, and hasn’t thrown all season. How difficult do you think that would be for a quarterback coming back at that age? And from shoulder surgery? Or do you think his experience can make up for a lot?
Kent Austin: You know I don’t know. I mean I can’t speak for the Argos and Ricky. I’ve got a lot of respect for Ricky obviously and what he’s accomplished. He’s a great quarterback. He’s played at a high level for a very long time. He’s a proven winner. But outside of that I can’t really comment about his situation and what’s going on. I don’t have any of the reports or know his daily progress or anything.
Curtis Rush: I mean, sorry as far as a quarterback at that age, you retired at 33, do you think you can play beyond 33?
Kent Austin: Oh I don’t think I could play at 33. It depends on the guy. You know, it just depends. Rich Gannon from the NFL comes to mind. A guy who didn’t play a lot but was good enough to hang around for a long time. Kept his body in shape, didn’t take a lot of hits, didn’t have a lot of injuries, and by the time he finally got to play, he had enough experience where he was able to play at a really high level. And it just depends on who’s quarterback. You know I had a friend, Frank Tarkenton that once said, when we met each other. He said “You know Kent, the funny thing about our position is you don’t learn to play until you physically can’t play it anymore.” It’s a great quote and it’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but there’s a lot of truth to it. In that, a quarterback really needs time and experience and a lot of game situations under his belt before he can feel comfortable handling every situation he’s in. Some quarterbacks weather the storm better physically than others. You know, Henry Burris comes to mind as a guy who’s been remarkably durable throughout his career. Damon Allen who I coached, another guy who played for a very, very long time and didn’t really sustain a lot of injuries. Where other quarterbacks aren’t as fortunate. And get beat up more for whatever reason. I think it just comes down to the individual.
Curtis Rush: Okay thanks Kent.
Convener: The next question is from Dan Ralph from the Canadian Press.
Dan Ralph: Another question for Kent if I may. Last year we saw Zach step in and have a very good, and a very solid season. What sort of growth and what sort of improvements would you like to see from him this year? Or are you expecting to see from him this year.
Kent Austin: Yeah, we’re expecting him to grow in every area. The 3 things that we evaluate, the 3 priorities if you will, in that position, and they are in this order is, decision making. The ability to make great decisions as a quarterback to put our offense in a position to be successful, and to put the ball in the end zone. Accuracy. Being able to throw the ball accurately under all given situations, whether you got a great pocket, whether it’s flushed, whatever the situation is, can you deliver passes to your receivers. And third is toughness. Are you a tough quarterback? Are you mentally, physically tough? And typically what you find is a quarterback that is mentally tough is usually physically tough. They tend to go hand in hand. You know Zach, you could see in OTAs, that just his understanding of the offence, his decision making was quicker. It was at a higher execution level. Meaning that his decisions were more proper. We evaluate that every practice. You know, what were the percentage of proper decisions made in the passing game? Those kinds of things. He was executing at a much faster, quicker pace than he was this time last year. And that’s his general familiarity with the offence and a comfort level of understanding what we, what we’re asking him to do. And just constant repetition within the offence. I expect him to improve in all those areas, he’s a natural leader, he’s a winner, his teammates love him. He’s very endearing to his teammates because he doesn’t complain or make any excuses about anything. He just goes out there and competes. He’s a really good quarterback that still has a really great future ahead of him.
Dan Ralph: Was there anything about him that surprised you? I mean you obviously did your due diligence when you signed. But when you saw him play and when you saw him on the field, was there something, was there a “wow factor” that you went and said “Gee I didn’t see that.”
Kent Austin: Well you know he’s got some Doug Flutie in him, right? He can pull stuff out of the fire that the normal quarterback can’t do. You know, he’ll break a tackle, break away from a guy, extend a play, and because of the strength of his arm, I mean everybody on the field is available to Zach. So you do have to cover the entire field with him. Especially when he’s extending the play and buying time. I think, and I don’t mean this in any way as a derogatory comment to Zach, he might take it this way if he hears this, but I think he, I knew he was very bright, cause of the diligence that we did. But he was actually brighter than I anticipated. And his ability to pick up our offence and understand, you know, the nature of what we do. It’s not difficult, it’s just different. And sometimes different means difficult to some people. Depends on the level of intelligence. So anyway, he was a lot brighter and more well prepared, which is a real testament to Scott, in Toronto, and at his other previous coaches I think in how they prepared him as a quarterback. He brought some of those habits in that I reaped the benefit from.
Dan Ralph: He obviously does his homework too right?
Kent Austin: He really does. He’s a real student of the game and he will pay the price to get prepared. And I know he’s prepared because of the testing that he goes through during the week.
Convener: The next question is from Rick Moffat from TSN Radio.
Rick Moffat: Thank you again. Thanks for taking the time everybody. Coach Austin, question for you, here in Montreal, a buzz around the signing of Michael Sam. Is he a guy who at any point, you and your staff kept kind of looking at the neg-list to see if the Als would ever let him off their neg-list? Cause they had him on for some time. And number 2, does the fact that an openly gay player comes into the league as an opposing player change in any way your preparation with your players. Do you discuss the gay issue with them in your locker room?
Kent Austin: No, we don’t discuss the gay issue in our locker room. We could care less about somebody’s sexual orientation. We care about the quality of the individual. And the commitment that he makes to his teammates. How unselfish he is in the role that he’s been given. We evaluate every player the same way. And you know, the respect to, we’re constantly looking at neg-lists across the entire league. And trying to, like every other team, trying to upgrade where we can. And we’re pretty satisfied with the quality of our neg-list right now. And think our guys do a pretty good job with that. But certainly Michael, or anybody else that came available, if in fact are in a category that improved our football team, we would take a strong look at that regardless of any other issues.
Rick Moffat: Is it fair to say he’s a player you think projects well in the CFL game?
Kent Austin: I think he’s a good player. He has natural pass-rushing skills. He proved that at a pretty high level in college. Obviously it’s a different game up here. And he’ll have to adapt to the style of the game and some of the nuances of the game up here, but I wouldn’t anticipate that learning curve being very difficult for him.
Convener: The next question is from Kirk Penton from the Winnipeg Sun.
Kirk Penton: Yes Scott, I just wanted to clarify something you said earlier. Did you say the Ticats hadn’t been profitable in 40 years? 4-0?
Scott Mitchell: Yeah I think Kirk, when you look at it through the previous ownership groups, and there’s been a lot of great owners in Hamilton. From the deGroot family to the great and famous Harold Ballard, and David Braley, and David McDonald, and George Grant. When you look historically at the different ownership groups, and the challenges that we’ve had at Ivor Wynne Stadium, we understand it’s been well over 3 decades and potentially 4 that we’ve had a facility and operation that you could claim as sustainable and hopefully profitable. And I think everybody understands that’s the reason why Bob Young got involved in this thing. Was to get the franchise to the point of stability. He’s been an unbelievable owner. Certainly the best owner, I’ve ever seen in professional sports. And it’s only because of Bob, we’ve got to this point. And yeah, we’re very proud of the fact that this year, and would have been last year, but this year we’re gonna be profitable for the first time certainly in 4 decades.
Convener: The next question is from Curtis Rush from the Toronto Star.
Curtis Rush: I have a question for Kent. Kent, what do you make of the status of quarterbacks generally across the league at this point? I know we got a mix of veterans, we got new quarterbacks coming on out in Calgary with Bo Levi Mitchell. Some fantastic quarterbacks, some new quarterbacks. Overall, can you talk about what kind of position the quarterbacks are generally in right now?
Kent Austin: Yeah, I won’t talk about any individual quarterback. I think as a whole, I think the quarterback team is very good. Players that know how to win, how to deliver the football, complete passes, manage their offences very effectively. You know, guys that are really, really good players. And I think the quality of the quarterback across the league is pretty healthy. And I know we lose some sleep preparing against some of these guys during our week of preparation. I think the league’s in good shape there and you’re gonna see a handful of these guys even get better. Which is gonna bold well for the individual franchises in the league as a whole.
Convener: The next question is from Dan Ralph from the Canadian Press.
Dan Ralph: Thank you and another one for Kent if I may. Can you explain, as best you can, why your team has taken so well to Tim Hortons Field? And why it’s such a tough place for an opponent to play in so far?
Kent Austin: Well if you have that formula, can you pass it along to me? Cause I’ll bottle it up and sell it. And I’ll get out of coaching at that point.
Dan Ralph: I’ll give it to you at a discount?
Kent Austin: Yeah, we’ll partner in it. I’ll get the LSC papers going right now. You know, there’s really a lot of factors. There’s not just 1 or 2. You know so much of this as you guys know, things have to fall your way, you need the breaks at particular times. To win games in an environment in this league, there’s a lot of parity. And a lot of teams that are very equal. And overall talent, they’re well coached. You know, some things fell our way, and we just kind of got on a roll. Our players, our fan support was certainly a big part of this. I mean going into that stadium with 18 or 25, I mean it was a big difference than going in with 4 or 5. And so physiologically, and it’s not a complaint, it’s just physiologically, it’s a boost for our players. I think the other thing is that it coincided I think with Zach’s return. And we were starting to play better football at the time of his return as well. We kind of settled some things up front on the offensive line. We made a ratio change there. We settled in really on what our lineup should be defensively, and how to use our players more properly to put them in a better position to be successful and kind of all that coalesced at the same time of Zach’s return. And I think the synergy of all of those things, among other things as well, came together at the right time and the results were, the result right?
Dan Ralph: And if I may just follow up, your off season signees, how important was getting Brandon Banks back?
Kent Austin: Really important. He’s a really dynamic football player, the proofs in the pudding and he puts the ball in the end zone. Regardless of how we use him, as a receiver running the speed sweep, returning punts or kick offs, the guy knows how to score. He’s a really good football player. Again, he’s a quality member of the team. The guys really love him cause he plays hard, he competes hard, wants to win. And a game changer. He has game changing ability.
Convener: The next question is from Curtis Rush from the Toronto Star.
Curtis Rush: Yeah hi, this is for Scott. Scott, last week obviously was a big moment for the CFL and the Argos, made the deal to move into BMO Field for 2016. And around the same time, I already tank bombed my May headlines again by suggesting that the NFL will be coming to Toronto eventually, it ticked some people off. I’m just wondering do you have a viewpoint on that? And whether those comments, how do you interpret them, and do you think that would have any effect on the image of the CFL.
Scott Mitchell: Yeah you know what, to be honest with you, I didn’t see what context those comments were made in, nor the accuracy of the comments. So I really can’t speak to that. I can speak to the fact that I think that MLSE and certainly Bell, and Larry’s ownership has clearly indicated they’re willing to provide every resource possible to their teams to be successful. They’ve had tremendous off court or off ice success, and I know they’re dying for some on court and on ice success. But I think last week was a tremendous day for the Toronto Argonauts. I think it was a tremendous day for the CFL to have great owners like that to take over a very storied franchise. I think it’s very exciting for us in Hamilton because there’s nothing better for us in Hamilton than to have an undefeated Ticats and a 15-3 Argos team. So let’s hope we get there someday.
Curtis Rush: One question for Kent, if I may. Kent, I really enjoyed your evaluation on quarterbacks, how you had a 1,2 and 3 evaluation. Do you have a same kind of evaluation for different positions? For instance, wide receivers? How would you evaluate a wide receiver?
Kent Austin: Your answer is yes, we do. We have a different way of evaluating each position, and some of that evaluation is not just his overall ability to play, his position from his skillset, but also how he fits in the overall puzzle. We need a complement of skills to be the most effective offensively. So, the most athletic player for example, I mean Orlondo and Tommy will both tell you this, isn’t necessarily the guy that plays. It’s the best football player as it relates to the overall puzzle that we’re piecing together, that makes us more effective as an individual unit on both sides of the ball. And the most competitive on the field. But yes, we evaluate our players and overall athleticism, skills specific evaluations in those categories, and then intangibles, character, work ethic, coachability, preparation, all of those things. So we have a 3 category approach to our evaluations and it changes according to position.
Curtis Rush: Your wide receivers? Sorry what were the 3 areas that you look for in a wide receiver?
Kent Austin: Ok, well there’s 3 broad categories. Alright there’s overall athleticism, there’s skill specific evaluation, and then there’s character and intangibles evaluation. So we’re not gonna talk about that on the phone.
Curtis Rush: And you drafted the wide receiver Daniel English, what do you see in him and what are his chances do you think to crack the starting lineup?
Kent Austin: Well every player has an equal opportunity to make our football team. It’s based on performance and how he fits with respect to some of the things I just mentioned. I mean Daniel’s a big receiver, we like his skillet. From what we understand, I mean I have Drew sitting here, our Director of Canadian Scouting, he’ll give you a whole list on due diligence on Daniel, but we’re excited about the young man. We’re excited about seeing him and coaching him, and seeing how well he responds schematically to what we do in the passing game. It’s gonna be different than probably his background. But, what we understand he’s very coachable, he’s bright, he certainly comes across very bright on the phone. But I can let Drew talk more about his overall skill set.
Drew Allemang: Yeah, no we’re excited to have Daniel come in here and compete, develop with us. He has all the tools. He’s a big kid that can run well. He uses his size to his advantage so, like everyone else, we’re excited for him to come in and compete.
