Carefree Canada does care — he’ll miss Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/02/2009 (6266 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TOM CANADA won’t deny the portrayal of him as a free spirit who loves the surf, the sand and any pretty lady in a bikini. What he does want to set straight, however, is the idea his release from the Winnipeg Blue Bombers is no biggie to him and that he’ll simply move on with his life. Fact is, he’s hurt by the news — officially delivered by the club on Friday — even if he saw it coming as far back as last September.

"I’m not happy, man," began Canada when reached on a friend’s cellphone in Costa Rica. "It’s disappointing. It sucks. It’s not cool to get released.

"I read coach Kelly’s comments on the Internet… and he said it’s all about productivity. That’s (BS). It’s all about money. I mean, I had freakin’ mono all year long and for them to say I didn’t produce? Who would produce if they had mono? They got Kai (Ellis) for cheap and I’m expensive. That’s the reality.

"I hoped that because of my dedication to the Blue Bombers and me passing up opportunities with other teams in the past couple of years that they would honour that and at least give me a shot to compete and not just give my job away. That’s how I feel about it, they gave my job away to somebody else without giving me a chance to give it a go again."

So, now what for the 29-year-old Californian, the Bombers top defensive player in 2007? Right now Canada isn’t sure about his football future. He owns a plot of land in Costa Rica and spends his days surfing and helping build an eco-hostel in a small town just south of Dominical on the Pacific coast.

"All this stuff seems so negative. I’m just not sure if it’s what I need in my life at the moment and it’s kind of turned me off to the whole idea of playing," Canada admitted. "I’m not completely close-minded to playing football. It goes back and forth. I wonder why should I stress out about garbage like this? And at other times I think, ‘I’m going to show these guys. You say my production went down, well, I’ll show you production.’ But right now I’m looking at the ocean, I’m looking at the beach and I see all these people surfing. And then there’s all that drama going on back there… it just seems all so far away from me.

"It seems to me like it’s just a mess, what’s going on over there," he added. "It’s not for me to say, but the cosmos will take care of all the negativity and what’s going on there.

"I know it’s not for me to decipher whether all that’s good or bad. They made a decision and now I have to deal with it."

Canada did say he’ll ask his agent to put out some feelers across the CFL, with Hamilton or Montreal possibilities. But even saying that stung him, mostly because of his genuine affection for Winnipeg — his football home for the past five years.

"That’s the hardest part for me," he said. "I love Winnipeg and thinking about not being a part of that any more. It’s not just the organization, but the city, the people, the fans and all my friends there.

"I just want to convey to people that I loved every second that I spent there. That’s what I want to remember about Winnipeg, not the negative crap."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca