Rod Pedersen: Rider Insider, June 22, 2015
The 2015 CFL season is about to kick off and all nine teams are lined up at the starter’s gate with identical 0-0 records. Savour this moment because everyone’s tied for first-place and optimism reigns supreme.
It may be a stretch to say excitement is at an all-time high across the CFL but it’s certainly right up there in the Wheat Province. Keep in mind too, this could be an historic season because if the CFL owners and governors have their way, this may be the final season which kicks off around Canada Day. They’d like to move it up by as much as a month beginning as early as next year.
Here in Saskatchewan, there is no need to cross our fingers and pray for the best like so many years ago. (Although that never hurts). This year’s Roughriders are a sturdy unit which appears to be in contention to play in the 2015 Grey Cup in the new Investors Group Field in Winnipeg.
After an 0-2 preseason, I’m still scratching my head at what exactly the Riders have assembled here. But that’s fine. The 2013 Grey Cup championship team seems like eons ago but there are still some traces of it left behind in the form of Darian Durant, Weston Dressler, Chris Getzlaf, John Chick, Alex Hall, Tyron Brackenridge and the like.
There’s a perilously thin line between “old” and “veteran” and we found this out during the fated 5-13 season of 2011. However Father Time has not yet caught up to this group. Of that I am confident, but he does have a tendency to show up unannounced.
To counter that, there’s a virtual flood of rookies on this year’s team including the next wave of franchise stars like 2015 draftees Nic Demski (receiver/returner) and Rory Connop (defensive tackle). I counted nine brand new faces who avoided the two swings of the axe at countdown time.