Another exciting CFL season is rapidly approaching and all of us players couldn’t be happier, with the possible exception of a few who maybe have not done as much running as they should have over the off-season. It seems like warm weather has only just arrived in most parts of our lovely country and we’re about to hit the field.
The off-season is an important time for players to rebuild battered bodies and put on some extra strength for the next season. We all work hard and welcome the opportunity to improve ourselves. However, somewhere around mid-February, it starts to feel like the winter will never end and at that point all we want is to get back out on the grass (or fake grass as is now the case throughout the entire league since Edmonton’s groundskeepers caught a case of the lazies last year and laid down astroturf).
As we grow more and more impatient, the off-season drags on and it seems like the season will never arrive until — all of a sudden — there are two days left until camp starts. This is where I find myself today. It is typical around this time of year for a sense of panic to set in amongst players. The stadium is full of guys getting in frantic final workouts before our official pre-camp weigh-in.
Everybody is making last minute preparations ahead of our one month lockdown for camp. For many of the rookies and younger guys this is as simple as getting their moms to pack their PSPs and getting them to promise not to take their posters down while they are away for the season.
For other guys, life is a bit more complicated. Those of us with girlfriends and/or wives must again go through an annual routine that we are all too familiar with. This is, of course, the task of convincing our loved ones that we do in fact play football and must attend training camp and that it’s not just a clever ruse to get away from them to go on a one-month bender in Rio with swimsuit models.
Single guys have problems as well. They often cope with their loneliness by acquiring a dog larger than they can reasonably care for and this proves problematic when camp rolls around. Just like us non-single guys must go through our annual, “No honey, I promise camp is a real thing and not an excuse to get away from you” routine, our single teammates with dogs must also go through an annual routine. Sufficient amounts of dry food must be poured out on the kitchen floor to sustain Rover for the duration of camp while all toilet seats must be left up and the entire living room covered in newspaper.
Such are the sacrifices and adjustments that football players must make as their off-season gives way to training camp. Like the changing of the seasons, it is a tradition as old as time itself. Antiquity saw the tradition of Roman soldiers leaving ancient Italy for a summer of campaigns packing a six month supply of hair gel with them, while in medieval Europe Lords leaving for crusade would have to leave behind a three year supply of gruel for their peasants.
As stressful as this time of year can be, none of us could be happier to be hitting the field soon. Even the guys who consider sitting in the sauna for 30 minutes to count as a cardio work-out are looking forward to it.
