RIDERS PLAYING WAIT-AND-SEE

Saskatchewan Roughriders GM Jeremy O’Day addressed reporters via video conference this week to address where the club is at regarding the pandemic, and Monday’s announcement of the postponement of training camps which were due to open May 17.

“I’ve reached out and we haven’t had any of our staff or players have any health concerns at this point,” O’Day reported. “Everyone is doing well from within the organization and we’ve been working with the players as much as possible. Right now, it’s been pretty positive and everyone’s healthy and well.

“Our biggest concern is just for the health and safety of all the players, so we reached out to them to give them some information on the virus and on some of the guidelines that they can adhere to. Just really encouraging them to try to stay as healthy as possible and encourage their families to do the same. We’re sharing the information as we get it. We’re getting the information the same way as the players would, so they’re remaining as patient as they can be in these circumstances.”

If the stay-at-home order, state of emergency or travel bans are lifted at a moment’s notice over the next six weeks or so, O’Day said the Riders will be ready.

“We’ve got an action plan in place, obviously with training camp being delayed or postponed,” O’Day observed. “We had to reach out to all the people that factored into training camp regarding housing and facilities. Fortunate enough for us, we hadn’t started to book any of the flights yet, so we don’t have any of the flights to worry about. But realistically, it’s just calling all the people.

“Our Football Ops department has done a great job of talking to all the people that we work with for training camp so that we’re prepared when we’re given the go ahead. One benefit for us this year is actually we had planned to stay in Regina for training camp, so it does make it a little bit easier for us. We don’t have to transport all of our equipment and supplies up to Saskatoon. We’re just right here in Regina and it’s all set up and ready to go. We feel like we can do it very, very quickly, as is as soon as we’re given the go ahead, we’ll put our action plan in place.”

(With files from Riderville.com)