There’s a perfect world in which Brady Oliveira plays his entire football career with his hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers, winning multiple championships, rushing titles and league awards along the way.
Sports
Pending Bombers’ free agent Oliveira eyes NFL, wants to get what he deserves in CFL
The star running back even has hopes of giving the National Football League a try, and who can blame him after he put up eye-popping numbers with the Bombers in 2023 and was voted a finalist for the CFL’s Most Outstanding Player award?
He’s still just 26 years old and the future is as bright as a sunlit sky.
“The whole NFL stuff has been a dream of mine, my entire life,” said Oliveira, whose American agent is trying to set up workouts for him already.
“Obviously, playing here is a dream too, but the NFL stuff, ever since I started playing football, to play at the highest possible level, the NFL, of course, would be a dream.”
It was a day for reflection on a second straight Grey Cup loss and on what might have been for a team that has been to the CFL’s championship game four seasons in a row and has only two titles to show for it.
Many players talked about what went wrong in Sunday’s game, which plays could have been the difference in a tight, hard-hitting battle, how close they actually came to winning a third Grey Cup in four years and establishing themselves as a true dynasty.
For others, it’s already on to thinking about the future, with at least 35 players slated to become free agents in February.
No one wants to see those players get away, but the Bombers likely can’t get them under contract without freeing up salary cap space somewhere else.
“You look at the talent in this locker room and there are guys that are young in their careers that deserve what they want to get, when it comes to contracts,” said Oliveira, who rushed for a 1,534 yards and had 2,016 yards from scrimmage this season.
“That, and you’ve got guys that are maybe near the end of their careers, I don’t know yet, maybe they can squeak out another year or two, but you never know, right? I think guys, at that time of their careers, are maybe more year to year, so it will be interesting.
Among the other pending free agents are star offensive linemen Stanley Bryant, 37, Jermarcus Hardrick, 33, and Pat Neufeld, 34, and defensive linemen Willie Jefferson, Jackson Jeffcoat and Jake Thomas, all 32.
The Bombers have done a great job of re-signing all of those players on one-year deals over the last five years, but at what point does a team need to start prioritizing younger talent?
At this point, it’s not even clear who will be negotiating deals with potential free agents, as general manager Kyle Walters is without a contract himself.
“It’s a little bit of a concern to myself when you look at the top down,” Oliveira said. “Kyle has done an amazing job with bringing the right pieces in, so having him back would be huge and he can get things going and bring in the right pieces.”
He will be an incredibly hot commodity on the CFL market if he gets to free agency and you have to believe the Bombers will do what they can to sign the favourite target of quarterback Zach Collaros, who is 35 but is under contract through 2025.
“Those are conversations to be had in the future, with my agent and my family, and everyone who is involved with that,” Schoen said Tuesday.
“I have had two great years here, on the field and off the field, more specifically. I have really enjoyed being around the guys in this locker room, have enjoyed getting to play with that guy right there (Collaros). It’s a special place.
Many of the Bombers players, including Collaros, spoke after Sunday’s game, and again on Tuesday, about the concern that this team will never look the same.
Players say that every year, and it’s always true, although you get the sense they might be bracing for more change than usual this time around.
The Walters situation is one thing, offensive co-ordinator Buck Pierce’s name has been mentioned as a candidate for a head coaching opening in Saskatchewan, and some players simply won’t be back.
“Obviously this is where I want to be if the NFL doesn’t work out,” Oliveira said. “I want to be in Winnipeg. That being said, you never really know what’s going to happen when you’re a free agent. The last two seasons that I put together were good, good enough to get what I deserve. So we’ll see.
“You never really know but I definitely want to be here if they bring the right core group back together.”
GOING FREE?
A list of potential Blue Bombers free agents
RB Brady Oliveira
RB Johnny Augustine
RB/WR Greg McCrae
FB Mike Miller
QB Dru Brown
QB Dakota Prukop
WR Dalton Schoen
WR Rasheed Bailey
WR Drew Wolitarsky
WR Brendan O’Leary-Orange
WR/KR Janarion Grant
OL Stanley Bryant
OL Jermarcus Hardrick
OL Geoff Gray
OL Chris Kolanskowski
OL Pat Neufeld
DE Willie Jefferson
DE Jackson Jeffcoat
DE Thiadric Hansen
DT Jake Thomas
DT Ricky Walker
DT Cam Lawson
LB Shayne Gauthier
LB Jesse Briggs
LB Malik Clements
LB Brian Cole
LB Tanner Cadwallader
DB Brandon Alexander
DB Demerio Houston
DB Deatrick Nichols
DB Alden Darby
DB Nick Hallett
DB Winston Rose
DB Redha Kramdi
K Sergio Castillo
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CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
—
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
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