Missing a storybook finish

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This article was published 24/12/2019 (2294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Most professional football players don’t have storybook endings to their careers.

But for a guy like former Winnipeg Blue Bomber defensive lineman Tom Canada, you can’t help but feel as though he deserved a better end to his football life. He also probably wouldn’t have minded a better beginning, too.

After making a name for himself with the University of California Golden Bears, Canada had several NFL tryouts, but was released on three separate occasions. Canada took off the pads and became a whitewater rafting guide on the South Fork American River in California. Unbeknownst to him, Canada’s agent at the time was sending his tapes to CFL teams before the Bombers stepped up and offered him a contract.

“It’s something I’ve thought about since years on end,” Canada said in a phone interview from his home in Rogue River Valley, Ore.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that the universe didn’t want me to go in that direction. You know, being Tom Canada in Winnipeg is where I needed to be. Instead of thinking about why, or how, or what could’ve led me to the NFL direction, I just trust in the fact that the cosmos took me in the direction I needed to be.”

Canada joined the Blue and Gold in 2004 and quickly became a fan favourite. Off the field, he was a cool California surfer who would call you “dude” and refer to things as “rad.” Canada oozed charisma and surely, his last name didn’t hurt his popularity either. When O Canada was sung before the team’s games at Canad Inns Stadium, the big screen would show the back of Canada’s jersey and the crowd would always let out a huge roar.

But what fans admired the most about him was his ability to chase down opposing quarterbacks. In 2004, he won the club’s most outstanding rookie award and was named a West Division all-star. While Canada found immediate personal success in the CFL, he’d have to wait a few seasons before the Bombers could produce a winning record.

Finally, in 2007, it seemed like everything was coming together. The Bombers went 10-7-1 in the regular season and Canada was chosen as the team’s most outstanding defensive player for the first time after recording 12 sacks on the year.

But it all came crashing down when, you guessed it, the team’s starting quarterback Kevin Glenn broke his arm at the end of the third quarter in the East Division final on the road against the Toronto Argonauts. It was such a fluke play, too. The ball was fumbled on a handoff to running back Charles Roberts and Glenn hit the turf to try to recover the loose ball.

Glenn was drilled by Argos linebacker Kevin Eiben, breaking the quarterback’s left arm. The Bombers would hang on for a 19-9 victory to advance to the Grey Cup to play the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but they’d have to rely on a quarterback who had zero CFL starts on his resumé — Ryan Dinwiddie. Saskatchewan, on the other hand, would have Kerry Joseph behind centre — the CFL’s most outstanding player that season.

“Personally, I thought I had to play the best game of my life,” said Canada, who was close friends with Dinwiddie. “I thought I had to go out there and destroy Kerry Joseph. I thought my job was to take him out of his game, take him out of his rhythm, and take him off of his ability to run around. And we did it. We did our job.”

It was a valiant effort by Canada — who had two sacks in the game — and by the Bombers defence as Joseph completed only 13 of 34 passes for 181 yards, a touchdown and an interception (he did, however, scamper for 101 yards on the ground). But it wasn’t enough as the Bombers would fall 23-19. It was a gut-wrenching loss, but Canada believed the team would be back. He was offered a big contract by the Montreal Alouettes in the off-season, but Canada took $50,000 less to continue his career in Winnipeg.

“I loved Winnipeg. I loved Winnipeg with every inch of my soul,” said Canada, who turns 40 next month.

“I had a beautiful girlfriend there, I had a huge fan base, I had a ton of friends, I had a whole community that supported me and loved me. And I had a team that the year prior just went to the Grey Cup. So, it’s like you know an extra $50,000, or stay with this thing that I had been growing, building and helping for the last however long. It wasn’t even a thought for me. It was just like ‘There’s no freakin’ way I’m leaving.’ We thought we’d go back and do the same damn thing ’cause it was the same team.”

In 2008, the Bombers lost their magic as they went 8-10 and lost 29-21 to the Edmonton Eskimos in the East Division semifinals. But the season was an even bigger nightmare for Canada personally.

“I wasn’t playing well. I was off. That season, they had given me a bunch of money upfront. It was a really nice bonus and I felt that I was a veteran. I don’t know if my game personally had slowed down or if I was just complacent or what exactly was going on. But I felt different,” Canada said.

“I felt something had changed in me and I couldn’t tell what it was. I kept trying and kept doing what I normally did, but something was different. I didn’t have the snap I usually had.”

It wasn’t until September of that year when Canada, who only had three sacks at mid-season, was able to get some answers as to why he wasn’t feeling right. During a home game against Saskatchewan, Canada was passing out on the field and blacking out on the sideline. Canada didn’t tell anyone what was wrong as he felt he was on the chopping block due to his lacklustre play. Somehow, he made it through the game. Canada had a ride home with a friend afterward and they had to pull over three or four times as the all-star defender wasn’t feeling right.

“I got home and my girlfriend took me to the hospital. I thought I was having a heart attack. I didn’t know what was going on. My arm hurt, my chest was convulsing and they did a bunch of tests on me and didn’t find anything. So, I went back to practice the next day,” he said.

But Canada was still feeling off, so he sat out the practice and returned to the hospital the following day to undergo more tests. The results: an immune deficiency disease, leading to a swollen liver and spleen.

“Within that, I had gotten an impact on my spleen and it had lacerated. So, I had a Grade 3 laceration in my spleen that hadn’t burst. It had all this nasty and gnarly fluid sitting in the sac of my spleen. If it were to have burst, I would’ve died ’cause it was straight toxins going into your body. But, enough toxins were seeping out and enough wrong things were happening where it was affecting me.”

The doctors told Canada he couldn’t play football for six months. During this whole ordeal, the Bombers attempted to trade Canada to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He found out about the deal while still in the hospital. His girlfriend cleaned out his locker and everything, but due to Canada’s health and his disapproval of the trade, it didn’t go through.

“I’m going to go sit in Hamilton and not play? This is insane,” Canada recalled.

“I was like ‘I’d rather go to the beach, dude.’ This is too much for me. This is not really my scene. And then they’re like ‘OK, well actually, you’re not traded.’ And then I went back and I was kind of pissed off. I passed up a bunch of money to go to Montreal and stayed as I wanted to be a part of the next round of Grey Cup winning Blue Bombers… I felt like a piece of meat.”

Canada returned to the team, but never played another snap. In the off-season, head coach Doug Berry was fired and replaced by Mike Kelly. Canada was in Costa Rica when he found out via email that the Bombers had released him. He had opportunities to play elsewhere, but Canada had a bitter taste in his mouth and decided to move on from the game.

“Just to have it all vanish, it was insane, man,” Canada said. “You went from this thing to poof, gone.”

Canada knows he could’ve played better and admitted he may have taken his release too personally at the time. Even though his Winnipeg tenure ended on ugly terms, he doesn’t let it get in the way of how he views his five seasons with the Bombers.

“I’ll never look back and say ‘Man, that was horrible the way it ended.’ It wasn’t the storybook ending, but none of that matters. The good outweighs the bad. The gifts that were given to me by the CFL has kept me rolling in dark times since. Looking back on my life there, when times are down here or things are going negative, I can close my eyes and say ‘Well, there was a time when…’ and I can reach back for those (memories).”

The final chapter in Canada’s football story is a disheartening one, but fortunately, life has been good to him since leaving the gridiron.

Today, he’s involved in the medical cannabis movement in Oregon. He’s a consultant for a large-scale cannabidiol (CBD) flower production garden that deals with everything from seed germination to the selling of the products to different distributors throughout the world. Canada, who has also got into building greenhouses across the state, owns a 50-acre ranch and has grown over 3,000 pounds of CBD flower this year.

“We’re a bunch of surfer dudes that have a garden,” Canada said. “We grow plants or build greenhouses half the year and then we surf the other half the year. I’m really stoked on life right now.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31