Stealth sessions

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/09/2014 (4037 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If a professional football team’s practice falls in a forest but no one sees it, does it exist?

That was the question at Investors Group Field Thursday after the Winnipeg Blue Bombers confirmed publicly for the first time they have been holding secret on-field exercises at IGF this season that neither the public nor the media were told about.

The latest stealth workout — the Bombers are adamant they are not “practices” — occurred behind closed doors at IGF Tuesday. Head coach Mike O’Shea revealed Thursday his team has been holding the stealth workouts all season.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with CFL teams holding closed practices. The league rules specifically allow teams to close up to one practice per week to the public and media.

CFL teams have done so from time to time. Both the Edmonton Eskimos and Calgary Stampeders, for instance, have held closed practices now and then in recent years, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders close one practice every week.

But while league rules allow closed practices, the same rules also clearly stipulate teams must inform the public and the media the practices are occurring, even if they are closed.

That’s not what the Bombers have been doing. Instead, the club has been posting a practice schedule for the media and public this season that specifically states no practice is scheduled, even when the stealth on-field exercises have been occurring.

So what does the CFL think about that?

League spokesman Jamie Dykstra said Thursday the league has looked into the situation and has accepted the Bombers’ explanation what they are doing this season on their first day of a practice week — ‘day zero’ — does not technically constitute a practice.

“We have discussed this with the Bombers and it is our understanding that day zero is a day of meetings where certain players hold walk-throughs (on the field) after reviewing film,” said Dykstra.

The league’s use of the term walk-through to justify what the Bombers are doing on the field behind closed doors is curious. CFL teams also describe the light practices they hold the day before a game as walk-throughs and the league makes it mandatory those be held in public and in full view of the media.

Moreover, the stealth on-field exercises are also occurring on a Bombers team that under O’Shea already has the most restrictive media-access policy in the nine-team CFL. The Bombers are the only team in the league that never allow media access to any of the team’s assistant coaches.

While other CFL teams have occasionally restricted access to assistants in previous seasons, the Bombers will become the first team in CFL history to do so for an entire season, unless O’Shea relents between now and the end of the season.

Other CFL teams have been criticized by fans and media for closing their practices. It is a new phenomenon in recent years in a league that was once unrivalled in its fan friendliness.

The Bombers’ decision this season to close their first on-field workout of each practice week — without letting media and the public know the workouts were occurring — allowed them to escape such scrutiny.

That’s no small caveat, given the Bombers are holding those stealth workouts in a $210-million stadium that was paid for in large part by taxpayer funds. Indeed, O’Shea said Thursday he is actually opposed to closed practices precisely because he thinks Bombers fans deserve better.

“To me, especially here, the fan base are so important to us and so loyal that if we closed a practice and the fans couldn’t come out and enjoy what they enjoy, I think that would be contrary to what I believe in.”

So what exactly is going on during these stealth workouts and why do the Bombers feel they are so different than the practices they hold the rest of the week? O’Shea said they are simply slow-motion run-throughs of corrections from the last game.

“There’s nothing about it that’s a practice. They’re in tennis shoes and ball caps and they’re sitting mostly,” said O’Shea. “There’s nothing organized about it really. It’s certainly nothing worthwhile (for fans to see) because it’s not as organized as a practice would be. They don’t do anything out there.”

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The issue of the Bombers’ practice schedule has come up recently in part because the club has held just two full practices in each of the last two weeks despite having lost four of their last five games.

O’Shea was asked why he hasn’t been asking more of his team on the practice field given the recent losing skid.

“I’ve always maintained, and what I witnessed the last couple years in my previous job (as an assistant coach), is that fresh was best. Keeping guys physically ready to go allows them to do their job, allows them to execute.

“There’s an adage in football that when you’re tired, the first thing to go is your head… So we do more classroom work and more focus on that kind of study than going out there and running them.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek