August 20, 2009

Hello, Rider Fans

Hope everything has been great out there despite it being a cooler summer. My family and I are doing great. My kids are growing like crazy and it’s a blast to watch, there’s never a dull moment around the Chick household. If you were able to watch our game against Hamilton hopefully, you saw that I am back from my shoulder injury. Man, was it fun being back out there! I love playing on this team, its so fun flying around out there with the other 11 guys who love playing this game. It was a big win on Sunday against a much improved Hamilton. It allowed us to maintain our first place record and get back on track at home again.

A lot has happened in this first 7 weeks, many ups and downs. We’ve lost a couple that we probably should have won and won a couple that we weren’t expected to win, at least by the media. There’s been a few disappointing injuries, and the retirement of one of the all time greats, Scott Schultz. However, there’s not a team better at handling distractions than your Saskatchewan Roughriders and we’ve been able to maintain 1st place all season long. If you are a fan that focuses on the details of a game and the chemistry of the players, I hope you can see along with myself that we are continuing to get stronger each week. We’re far from perfect yet, but once we get there who’s gonna stop us, have you ever seen guys that fly around and sell themselves out like these guys do.

We are off to the 6-1-0 Montreal Alouettes on a very short week, a team who has already beaten us. We had two practices this week and will spend about 8-12 hours getting to Montreal starting at 5:00am today. The only reason I share this with you is because of the good news. Like I have said, we (the Saskatchewan Roughriders) thrive on distractions and are the best team that I’ve been a part of at overcoming them. I’ve heard nothing but excitement from my teammates and coaches this week about the opportunity we have to go into Montreal and beat them on their home turf. I’m not going to ever guarantee anything but I believe that the opportunity is great as we are improving.

I look forward to keeping up with you more regularly and talking to you again soon following the bye week. Thanks again, as always for your support, your support of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, and your support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Thank You!

John Chick