Alouettes go from being hunter to hunted as training camp begins

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“Our room doesn’t need any external motivation,” head mentor Jason Maas says. “Everyone understands the target’s on … the defending Grey Cup champions’ backs.”

Revealed Would possibly 12, 2024 • 4 slight learn

Alouettes working again Sean Thomas-Erlington runs a drill throughout coaching camp in St-Jérôme on Sunday, Would possibly 12, 2024. Photograph by way of Graham Hughes /The Canadian Press

ST-JÉRÔME — At time 38, Kristian Matte will have ridden off into the sundown and retired at the heels of a Gray Cup championship.

Rather, the veteran Alouettes barricade, and the oldest participant at the group, made up our minds to go back for his fifteenth season with the group. And, following the outlet year of coaching camp on the Claude Beaulieu Multisport Centre, Matte is aware of there’s nowhere else he’d in lieu be.

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“It’s exciting to get back on the field, to see the guys,” he mentioned following Sunday’s afternoon follow. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years now, playing football. Just to be on the field, I feel blessed. I’m happy to be here and ready to work hard.

“It’s always a great storyline when you can finish on top,” added the previous first-round (7th total) draft selection in 2010 out of Concordia College. “After the (Grey Cup) game, within an hour, I was telling myself this is a great feeling. It would be great to be able to live this again, if I’m still able and willing. Being in the locker room with the guys, having that family feeling, being passionate about a sport and, if your body’s able to do it, why not do it while you can, because it’s not something that will last for a very long time. Take advantage of it when you can.”

Because the Alouettes embark at the get started of any other camp state of affairs, the dynamics and optics have modified significantly from a occasion in the past, when not anything a lot was once anticipated from this group. Even in mid-September, in the course of a four-game shedding streak that dropped Montreal’s report to 6-7, the season would possibly have long past off the rails. Rather, the membership was once galvanized and not misplaced once more, profitable its ultimate 8 contests, culminating it its come-from-behind 28-24 victory over Winnipeg at Tim Hortons Garden in Hamilton.

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Despite the fact that the CFL is composed of most effective 9 groups, refuse membership has captured consecutive titles because the Blue Bombers in 2019 and ’21 (the league was once opposed in 2020 as a result of COVID). Montreal, in 2009-10, are the terminating to win Cup championships in successive seasons. It’s clearly no longer as simple as it could seem at the floor, and Montreal now is going from being the hunter to the hunted.

It is going to be paramount the core team of veterans, to not point out head mentor Jason Maas, don’t permit complacency to eager in. Maas made it sunny terminating Friday, when the avid gamers had been offered with their championship rings, there now not can be point out of pace historical past. However the tradition and requirements anticipated from the avid gamers, Maas stressed out, received’t ever trade.

“It’s a new season,” Maas mentioned on Sunday. “We’re going to write our own story and it’s going to start with connection. We’ve got a lot of new guys in that room, and a lot of guys that were here last year. We want to connect the groups together. That’s what we’re about in this camp and that’s really what defines us. It’s just about how we’re going to go about doing that during this camp. And try to do it as fast as possible.

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“If being hunted motivates you, great. Our room doesn’t need any external motivation. Everyone understands the target’s on. Generally speaking, the target’s on the defending Grey Cup champions’ backs. But we’re not looking at it that way. I couldn’t care less what everyone else thinks about us, to be honest.”

One occasion in the past, quarterback Cody Fajardo were kicked to the curb by way of Saskatchewan, changed because the Roughriders’ creation quarterback overdue in 2022 and signed by way of the Alouettes as a isolated agent. If Fajardo had issues to turn out to his critics month making an attempt to resurrect his profession, he enters this camp because the unchallenged starter along with his place and legacy outlined.

“It’s the mentality I’ve had my whole career,” Fajardo mentioned. “You come in and want to earn it. You don’t want to show any complacency. The biggest thing is consistency; that’s been my goal. After you win a Cup, if you want to be talked about with the legends of the league, you have to go out and do it again … prove you can do it again. To have a bit of a taste of it, it makes you want it a little bit more. That’s the motivation, knowing what it felt like winning the last game of the season.”

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Protection Marc-Antoine Dequoy, now coming into his fourth season with Montreal, mentioned the secret is no longer converting the group’s mentality. And, taking into account the philosophy of common supervisor Danny Maciocia, Maas and his assistants, that’s not likely to happen, he added.

“There’s a difference between what’s being said (inside the dressing room) and outside,” mentioned Dequoy, the East Category nominee as remarkable Canadian terminating season. “We’re remembering last year, but we’re not talking about it. It’s a new team. We know what we’ve got to do to win. If you’re the type that sits on success, it’s easy to happen. But you can see with the leadership that’s in place, it’s not those types of people.

“The biggest message vocally is by (your) actions,” he added. “Are we on the sideline messing around? We set an example, as veterans. We never give up. That mentality the new people will see. And they’ll know that’s what it takes to be an Alouette.”

hzurkowsky@postmedia.com

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