Monday 18 June 2012

Observations From Today's Practice

According to the schedule on the Tiger-Cats' website, today was the final day of training camp. With that being the case, I made the trek one final time to Ron Joyce Stadium to watch the team practice. Here is what I saw:
  • Bakari Grant limped off about midway through the practice session after getting tangled up with a defender during the team's no huddle drill. The injury did not look too serious, but he sat out the remainder of practice.
  • In other injurt news, running back Terry Grant was doing a little work with one of the trainers during practice. He was standing on what looked to be a blue piece of foam catching passes on one foot. He did this for about 15 minutes, alternating which foot he stood on a few times.
  • Jim Daley tore a strip off the kick coverage unit. He lost it on his players after coach Cortez blew the whistle to change drills. Daley clearly wanted the team to get more kicks off, and when they didn't, he flipped.
  • George Cortez also had a moment when he lost it on the offense. Using language I would rather not reprint, he yelled at the offense for not doing things properly. It is probably the first time I have seen him that angry.
  • Henry Burris made a couple of very nice passes. He found Andy Fantuz for a big gain, hit Dave Stala for a large gain as well. The pass to Stala was particularly impressive considering he threw it from the left hash all the way to the sideline on the wide side of the field. Burris' arm strength is a site to behold in person.
  • The team piped in some crowd noise during 12-on-12 drills. With a road game this week, this was obviously used to get the players comfortable with making play calls when the noise is not ideal.
So that's it; another Tiger-Cat training camp has come to an end. If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say this is the last camp the team will hold at McMaster for some time. Given the acrimony over McMaster refusing to host games next season, my gut tells me that the team will be looking for a new place to host training camp next season.

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