Fired up and ready to go

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/08/2010 (5596 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had a noticeable spring in his step Thursday, a bounce you wouldn’t expect from a player coming off what could have been a serious knee injury.

No, it wasn’t quarterback Buck Pierce.

Dorian Smith, an unwilling member of the Bombers’ knee-injury brigade this season, is scheduled to return to the starting defence when the Bombers take on the desperate Hamilton Tiger-Cats at Ivor Wynne Stadium Saturday (6 p.m., TSN, CJOB).

The defensive tackle went down early in the 36-34 loss to Toronto in Week 2 and says he’s been counting the days between that game and the coming contest against the Ticats.

For those scoring at home, the final number will be 29 days.

"You have no idea how happy (I am) to know that I’ll be playing," the third-year Bomber said after a cool, wet practice at Rods Field. "It feels like it’s been a long time, but it’s been a blessing in disguise. It really turned my fire up to play the sport of football again. Sometimes you need that."

It’s tough to gauge when a player in the interior of a gridiron trench is struggling with his play (and he has less than two full games of work at this point), but Smith revealed he didn’t get off to the start he wanted this summer.

Expectations were high for the 6-foot-3, 267-pound Oregon State grad after he earned the starting spot next to mainstay Doug Brown in the middle of last season (Smith had 47 tackles and eight sacks), and the import DT admits he was struggling with the self-imposed pressure of trying to meet his ’09 standard.

Mentally, things didn’t feel exactly right early this season, Smith confessed.

"I felt like I had to go out and try to do more," the 24-year-old said. "That kind of hurt me, I think. It started to feel like a job where I was worried about what I was doing. So sitting out and watching the guys, it really made me notice how much fun I was missing out on."

So the knee injury was a starter for Smith in regard to a personal reset on the fun-o-meter, but it was also a disguised blessing for the Bombers, as his injury gave the club an opportunity to see if backup interior lineman Moton Hopkins could play at the CFL level. All indications are that he can.

That said, there’s certainly no hesitation from the Bombers coaching staff to insert Smith back into the line instead of the rookie. With so many roster moves coming from the Blue and Gold side this week — especially on defence — a return to some stability is just what the doctor ordered.

"He (Smith) can move around well inside, and obviously he’s got a lot more experience," head coach Paul LaPolice said, happy to see some players returning to his beaten-up roster. "That’s good to get guys with experience back on, because we’ve had a lot of injuries and some less-experienced guys have had to step up. Now, we get a more experienced guy back on the field, so that’s a great thing."

Though it caused him to miss a month of action, Smith said the injury to his left knee wasn’t too bad (surgery wasn’t even discussed). It’s a strain to the medial collateral ligament that put him in some serious discomfort for the first couple weeks, but because it was an injury he’s dealt with before, he knew how it would respond at various stages.

Unlike Pierce, who’s never been through an injury like the one he’s had to deal with the last few weeks (putting an element of concern in the therapy), Smith knew exactly when he could push it and when he should lay off.

"I’m going to be playing with a brace, but it hasn’t really bothered me," he said. "I made sure I didn’t come back too early, so I could finish out the season."

adam.wazny@freepress.mb.ca