It’s that time of year when normally Saskatchewan Roughriders coach Craig Dickenson, would be busy trying to figure out who will play where on the big club for the upcoming season.
Instead, with COVID-19 delaying the CFL season until at least September, like many of us, Dickenson finds himself still at home.
Speaking with Derek Taylor on the Sportscage Thursday afternoon, Dickenson said he hadn’t really written up his main message for this season yet, adding that usually cones up in training camp.
“I do feel like our team in general though felt like we had another step to take, and that we’ll have kind of an unfinished business approach, that there was more to do,” Dickenson said.
Main camp would have opened on Sunday for the Riders, who were supposed to kick off the 2020 regular season June 19th at home to Montreal.
With the CFL season postponed and Regina not hosting the Grey Cup until 2022, Dickenson said really he is playing everything by ear at the moment.
“I’ve never been home this late, and I’m not sure quite what to do around the house here, but everything you do during the season is kind of structured in such a way that at certain times of the year you always know where you’re going to be and what you’ll be doing, obviously this year is an exception to that so we’ll just play it by-ear and do the best we can with it.”
One aspect Dickenson knew would and will look different this season is the teams practice regime.
“In years past we would always go one practice and just go back-to-back, we were going to split it up this year and just go actually two practices, with the first one being essentially a walk-thru and teaching sort of practice and then the second one being a little more competitive,” Dickenson said.