Ticats, Forge and Honey Badgers bring 11 new players and coaches from seven countries to Hamilton
Eight foreign players, three coaches, from seven countries adapt to Hamilton in pro basketball, soccer, football jobs, non-existent a few months ago.
It's a corollary of the busiest spring in the history of Hamilton professional sport.
Eight athletes and three coaches — all born, raised and trained outside Canada and the United States — are now with Hamilton teams in positions that did not exist a year ago.
They come from Mexico, France, Israel, Cameroon, Sweden, Belgium, and Senegal, drawn to the city by a confluence of radical developments in three separate professional leagues.
The Canadian Elite Basketball League and the Canadian Premier League are brand new, and while both are domestic-heavy they have room for, and a ceiling on, foreign players.
The long-rooted CFL, through its emerging 2.0 blueprint and agreements with nine international football associations, has created an extra game-roster spot for a 'Global' (European or Mexican) player. There will also be two new spots on the practice roster for Globals, assuming the new labour agreement is ratified. So four are in town and three likely stay.
Two separate drafts were held, stocking each CFL team with three players from Mexico and one from Europe. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats took receivers Jose Noriega, 27, and running backs Luis Lopez, 22, and Omar Cojolum, 28, in the Mexican draft, and 24-year-old defensive end Valentin Gnahoua with the first-overall European choice.
Head coach Orlondo Steinauer is easing the quartet in gradually. They take part in skills drills but haven't worked in full-team competitions during the first three days of training camp.
"It's new to them, things are happening fast," he says. "It's a lot of observation, first. Their attitude has been outstanding. We like that they want to be out there, but it's in the best interests of everybody that we slowly integrate them."
Although the CEBL's Hamilton Honey Badgers have not yet signed any players who didn't grow up in Canada or the U.S., one of their coaches, Yinon Rietti, is from Israel. He coached there in the elite professional league and in college men's and women's ranks. He also worked with Badgers head coach Chantal Vallée at the University of Windsor .
Forge FC has two foreign coaches in Bobby Smyrniotis's assistants Peter Reynders, a 30-year-plus veteran of Belgian soccer, and Johan Albert of France, whose long resume includes FC Nantes and Congo's national team.
Teams in the CPL can play as many as five non-Canadians and carry seven on the overall roster, but Forge has signed just four: defenders Bertrand Owundi, 25, from Cameroon and Daniel Krutzen, 22, of Belgium; and midfielders Elimane Cissé, 23, of Senegal and Alexander Achinioti Jonsson, 22, from Sweden.
All four are living in Hamilton, Jonsson on his own and Krutzen with three other teammates, while Cissé and Owundi share an apartment.
"We speak French to each other there," Owundi says. "On the field we speak sometimes English and sometimes French. Johan and Peter both speak French to us.
"For sure it's different: different cultures, different style of football, everything different, but we have to do our job and adapt."
He says he and Cissé haven't had the chance to meet any other people in the community from Senegal or Cameroon.
"It's time that we have to meet them. The life is nice here but I don't have the time yet to go out and look around. But I think we'll discover more."
Jonsson says he came to Canada after playing more than 50 games in Sweden's top two divisions in order to further his career and diversify his life experience. Krutzen, meanwhile, left Belgium to play at the University of Albany and then the USL, "so I'm familiar with the whole culture. I came here through Peter, who I knew from Belgium, and it's been great."
Over on the gridiron, Gnahoua has experience on the 2016 McGill roster, but he generally just practised with the team before returning to play professionally in Berlin.
"I want to prove that I have the same level as the players here. In Germany, the game is very slow because the guys are very big. It's very different and faster here. But I can adapt because I played at McGill. I feel like I'm representing all the French players here."
Noriega is the only one of the Ticats' three Mexican players who speaks English, so has to translate instructions during practice and meetings for Lopez and Cojolum. They are happy to have their long-awaited opportunity to play outside of Mexico, but the trio would clearly prefer to be taking more reps on the field.
"That will come," Noriega says. "It's tough. The rhythm is different, the technique is different, the playbook is different, the rule book is different from what we're used to.
"And for my two friends, they don't speak English. They do interact with other players, making signs, and using little words. We're trying to learn from the veterans and they have made us feel like we're part of the Ticat family."
905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec
905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec