By Jack Bedell,
MontrealAlouettes.com
Hammond, LA – No matter what I do to avoid it, as soon as all the news from CFL free agency, the league congress, and E-camp starts to slow down, I get hit by the same off-season bug every year… the Training Camp Jones.
You’d think coming off an incredible Grey Cup championship season, I’d have enough memories to keep me satisfied for a few months. I’ve cycled through the whole season a couple of times on my PVR, though, and it’s just made me more anxious to get 2010 kicked off.
Coach Trestman taking home the Annis Stukus trophy for Coach of the Year and receiving some much-deserved accolades should’ve given me at least a couple of weeks of relief from the Jones, but it just fueled my curiosity to see how he guides the team through a defence of its crown.
Watching the Als’ All-Star core of veterans like Anthony Calvillo, Bryan Chiu, Paul Lambert, Kerry Watkins, Diamond Ferri, and John Bowman re-up for another run should have given me a little time off to relax and celebrate the team’s championship continuity.
But thinking about how the additions of players like Gavin Walls and Cody Pickett and the losses of defensive stalwarts like Keron Williams and Davis Sanchez will change the dynamic of the team just gets my mind racing toward June again.
From parsing over the 2010 schedule as soon as it’s released so I can see where the quick turnaround games and back-to-back road trips happen, to keeping one eye on the transaction ticker waiting for confirmation of Ben Cahoon’s return, to cataloging what the other teams in the East are up to, to prepping for the CFL Canadian Draft, there’s just no way for me to stay in the present.
My entire off-season is a freight train headed straight toward training camp. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Might as well put a big strip of white tape across my forehead with the name “Jones” written in red ink across it…
