7/27/2007 10:04:03 PM
Heat Wave

The words “heated” and “battle” tend to be thrown together in all facets of life quite often. I hear them all the time in movies, to promote fights, or even conflicts on shows. Tomorrow we’ve got a daytime kickoff against the Riders at Mosaic Stadium, in what promises to be a “heated battle” in every sense of the word. Day games pose a different preparation protocol than the night games that we get so accustomed to at the professional level, but they can be a nice change of pace when they do come up. However, when they come up in the middle of the summer like this one does things could get interesting. Heat will be a factor in this game, as forecasts call for temperatures to reach 37-43 degrees Celsius throughout the game’s duration. What that will quickly determine, is which team is better conditioned.
I doubt that it was near that temperature today at walk through, but it was definitely hot enough to see the heat lines rising from the new field turf that’s not quite settled in yet. The field turf is anchored by millions of little rubber chips surrounding blades of synthetic grass, but until the field is worn down over time enough to settle the chips it will be a heat conductor on hot days. As a player it’s definitely tough to simulate that kind of heat in practice, and I’m sure it must drive coaches and trainers crazy that we end up cramping at the worst times during these types of extreme heat games. Mainly because during the entire week we’re being force fed water, and encouraged to hydrate as much as humanly possible to over-saturate our bodies in preparation for how much water we’ll be losing throughout the course of the game.
The summertime day games are definitely in the back my mind during the offseason during the strength and conditioning phases of my workout, then again so are the cold playoff possibilities. That’s one of the great things about this league in my opinion, the entire gambit of elements really comes into play throughout this long season and if one is not prepared physically and mentally for such an experience, the results could be disastrous. In 2004 it seemed like every single home game we had in Winnipeg was rained on, which I think definitely played into our misfortunes as a team that year. In hindsight, perhaps it was my own personal cloud hovering over the stadium at that time, but be that as it may…it still seemed extreme to me at the time. A heat wave crossing Canada can have a similar effect on your team if it’s not responsive to the ups and downs that come from Mother Nature week in and week out in the CFL. If your star players are cramping up and strapped up to IV’s on the sidelines, it will be very difficult for them to make plays for you at crucial times. By the same token, I’ve seen some interesting things occur once the weather turns south as well. I’ve seen some good players become very average during a “Canadian Autumn,” as I like to call it. Very few can run 4.3 seconds in the forty yard dash as it is, but only a fraction of the population can run that in Edmonton in the first weeks of November, to run under a ball that is going to feel like a brick once it hits your hands in the cold night air.
I definitely take these games as a personal challenge, even more so than the challenge is by itself. The man that will be defending me will pose one set of challenges of which I feel like I’ve shed enough blood and sweat during the offseason and training camp to rise above, whereas the heat is an adversary that can either break you, or help you break the man across the line from you by wearing him down and making him question how bad he really wants to be out there fighting tooth and nail in an sauna.
I trust my preparation wholeheartedly, and I pray and believe that my teammates will ready themselves for what lies ahead. To say that the odds will be stacked against us, really is an understatement what, with the heat, the last games circumstances lingering, and the fact that we’re on the road. However, should we find some way to win this game…we would begin to venture down a different road as a team, one that we really need to be on to get where we want to go.
We’ll soon find out if we can stand the heat. ©

KP8