Buck won’t dwell on last year’s injury

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2011 (5512 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S the place and the game that ended Buck Pierce’s 2010 season —- and very nearly his career.

And so it’d be hard to blame Pierce if he was feeling trepidatious this week as he prepares to head back to Mosaic Stadium in Regina for Sunday’s Labour Day Weekend game against the Saskatchewan Roughriders —- the same setting where Pierce dislocated the elbow of his throwing arm during last year’s Labour Day game.

Not so, says Pierce. “That’s so long ago and I’ve played so many games since then, it isn’t really a thought anymore. I really don’t even think about it. I think even people around here and around the CFL are forgetting about it, which is nice.

“It’s in the past, let’s just leave it there and focus on going out and getting a win.”

Pierce, who is believed to be the first professional quarterback to come back to play after dislocating the throwing arm elbow, said he feels like he laid whatever demons might come with such a catastrophic injury to rest at the start of the season. “All that stuff took place when I came out here to training camp and took my first start against Hamilton,” said Pierce.

— If he’s healthy, he will likely play. Maybe.

That seemed to be the conflicting message of Winnipeg Blue Bombers field boss Paul LaPolice after injured wide receiver Kito Poblah practised with the first-team offence on Wednesday at Canad Inns Stadium.

“The thing we have to be cautious with him,” explained LaPolice, “is last week we worked him out and he had a lot of soreness. So the same process will happen this week —- we’ll work him out for three days and see how he is at the end of it.”

LaPolice added, however, that it’s not just Poblah’s health that the Bombers are watching in their blue-chip prospect, who hurt his knee in Week 1 and hasn’t played since.

“The big thing is you have to get them in a relationship with the quarterback. And I don’t mean dating and hanging out. I mean knowing where they’re going to be, when they’re going to come out of their breaks, how they’re going to come out of their breaks. That’s part of the process — whether he’s on or not — that we start building that relationship.”

— Wiecek