SHOLOGAN FEATURED IN HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER

BYLINE: VANESSA ANNAND
ATHABASCA ADVOCATE

Veteran CFL defensive tackle Keith Shologan, who grew up in Rochester, AB, will head even further east to join league newcomers the Ottawa Redblacks next season.

“Being selected and having to play with Ottawa next year — it’s going to be interesting,” said the 28-year-old. “It’ll be interesting to see how the teams all come up.”

He said he was shocked when he found out he’d been chosen in the Dec. 16 expansion draft, but now has the sense he gets to be a part of something brand new, “and hopefully start a strong foundation there of success.”

The Saskatchewan Roughriders, with whom Shologan has played for his entire six-year CFL career thus far, did not protect Shologan during the expansion draft, and the Redblacks — astutely, by all accounts — leapt at the chance to have 2010’s Grey Cup Top Canadian join their ranks.

“(The Roughriders) couldn’t protect everybody, so I knew that there was an opportunity that I wouldn’t be protected,” he said.

The Roughriders chose to protect their offensive line, which left “some d-linemen out in the wind,” according to Shologan.

There was some speculation that because of his long tenure with the Riders, Shologan’s salary may have been a factor in the Riders’ decision.

“It was just one of those things. I talked to the GM before and after, and you know, sure, yeah, they have to worry about cap room and stuff like that, but what it comes down to is it just is what it is. I don’t really know, and really I don’t really care too much, either. I just know that I’m going to be on a different team next year.”

Shologan has plenty of fond memories of his time with the Riders, particularly November’s Grey Cup win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a 45-23 trouncing.

“It’s a goal that everybody strives for, and I’ve been so close on two other occasions. To finally come out with a win is just an amazing feeling,” he said.

“Just being on a dominant defence and a dominant team was something else. We did well, and it’s going to be something that I remember and hang my hat on for the rest of my life. It’s an amazing thing to just be able to say that I’m a Grey Cup champ.”

He recalled the now-infamous extra-man snafu of 2009, “thinking that we had won, and we didn’t — and that gets taken away.” This time, he said there was “just that for sure moment of ‘we won,’ and running on the field”: the best moment of the game, by his estimation.

While changes abound in his main career, Shologan said he’ll still likely work with the Red Cross through the winter.

“They said they definitely still want me on the team, and we’re going to be trying to reach kids,” he said of the anti-bullying program that has become a staple of his off-season life.

He said it was too soon to say whether he and wife Anna, also of Athabasca County, will consider a move to Ontario. The couple, who welcomed their first child in July, built and moved into a home near Craven, Saskatchewan, last November — a place Shologan called “our little piece of paradise” in a July interview with the Advocate.

Whatever the more distant future holds, the Shologans will be back near Athabasca for a few days of respite over the holidays.

“It’s amazing to have a son and be able to look at him in the mornings, so that’s probably the highlight of my day so far — every morning, getting extremely excited when he wakes up,” said Shologan of family life.

http://m.athabascaadvocate.com/article/20131223/ATH1101/312239987/0/ath03&template=JQMArticle