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Lacombe’s Tanner Green disappointed for cancelled CFL season, happy to have clarity

At times, Tanner Green saw the writing on the wall and yet, at others, there was a reason for optimism.
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Lacombe’s Tanner Green, who plays fullback for the Edmonton Football Team makes a tackle last season. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

At times, Tanner Green saw the writing on the wall and yet, at others, there was a reason for optimism.

Still, he felt the pain of many CFL fans when the news dropped Monday that the 2020 season was officially cancelled.

That announcement came after months and months of speculation during the COVID-19 pandemic, including CFL commissioner Randy Ambrosie asking the federal government for a loan to help prop up operations and the league nearly playing a six-game season in a bubble in Winnipeg.

It was all for not and Green said Wednesday he was just happy to finally have some certainty.

“Of course I wanted to play and a lot of the guys we were very excited about coming back together as a team playing, all the way up until they finally gave the no,” said the Lacombe product, who was set to enter his third season at fullback with the Edmonton Football team.

“There was a lot of emotion. Going through the news, one week you’d be super optimistic and the next week, everything was negative. It was hard.”

Green trained all summer and said he would have been pretty much ready to go at a moment’s notice. That moment never came and that was the most frustrating part – the waiting and the wondering.

“Just the waiting game, man, not knowing. Do I start something else or do I wait?” said the six-foot-three, 235-pound fullback.

“Am I going to get a call next week that you’ve got to be in Winnipeg in a month? Getting an answer, really just allowed me to just take a deep breath. Yes, I wanted to go play, just having an answer allows for the guys to move on… (the waiting) sucked big time.”

He still did make the most of his time, buying a townhouse with his wife in Lacombe. Between his time playing university football in Montreal and living part-time in Edmonton while chasing the CFL dream, there was never a convenient time for the two to buy their own place.

And the townhouse, it turns out needed some work and that’s kept Green with his hands more than full.

“We find a nice little spot, unfortunately, every single room in the whole house had something to renovate. The last two weeks… we’ve been putting 14 hours a day at least, renoing everything,” he said.

After the renovations and before next season, if there is a season, Green said he hopes to help out with a football program at The Dome Sports if there’s an appetite for it.

With the high school football season on hiatus because of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, Green is just hoping to help sharpen the skills of young players any way he can.

“We’re going to try and do our best to work with (teams), if they want to do some things at the dome… seeing if we can get kids back in and see what we can do for games or get them training and back in the gym,” Green said.

As for the 2021 CFL season, Green is excited and optimistic.

“I think everyone is confident that they will. I know the CFLPA and the CFL are working hard together to be more of a joined front for the following years,” he said.

“It’ll be interesting, but I definitely think there will be CFL next year.”



Byron Hackett

About the Author: Byron Hackett

Byron has been the sports reporter at the advocate since December of 2016. He likes to spend his time in cold hockey arenas accompanied by luke warm, watered down coffee.
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