Steve Milton: Ticats and Forge play on amid poor air quality as they prepare for big weekend games
It smelled so much like a campfire that you kept expecting toasted marshmallows and a few verses of Kumbaya.
For the second straight day, both the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Forge FC practised - outside - at Tim Hortons Field, with its normally sweeping view obscured by the environmentally-unfriendly haze blanketing this part of the country. Smoky mist from the Quebec and Eastern Ontario forest fires got worse as Wednesday progressed, and was expected to be more severe on Thursday.
It's an ominous thing," Forge head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said Wednesday. You look up at the sun ... and you can't see it. Yesterday, when I drove over the Skyway after practice you couldn't see the Burlington waterfront."
Both Hamilton teams play this weekend, with the Ticats opening their season Friday night in Winnipeg and the Forge hosting Pacific FC Saturday night in a battle for first place, so these practices were important sessions.
Both teams had trainers and staff monitoring the local air quality index (AQI) and were watching for signs that the nearly-edible air was affecting players. They had been prepared to move indoors if outdoor conditions became too dangerous. Each team got their work in, but the soccer club did shave a half-hour from what is usually a 105-minute practice, the longest of the week.
The AQI was a passable 3 for the Forge practice at 9 a.m. and 4 during the Ticats practice which began a couple of hours later. An hour after the Ticats practice, it had climbed to 6 before the skies cleared substantially in the late afternoon.
The CFL and the CFL Players Association reached a joint agreement four years ago that if AQI reaches 7 or higher teams cannot continue outside, in practices or in games.
Orlondo Steinauer said that his Ticats got in their final full on-field practice of the week with high-energy efficiency. Thursday's workout is just a one-hour walk-through before the team leaves for Winnipeg later in the day. The head coach said Tuesday's soupy air was, obviously, noticeable.
Once we got the thumbs-up that we were in the safe zone we were ready to work, but we were prepared to do the right thing if it was headed the other way and be off the field," Steinauer said Wednesday. We're dealing with people; we're always going to put their health and safety first.
I'm not going to sit here and say nobody made comments about it, but it wasn't a distraction."
Ticats safety Tunde Adeleke said the players weren't noticing any ill effects during practice and that the haze and smoky smell were better than practicing in the freezing cold and rain later in the season.
It was fine, it didn't affect us," said defensive back and kick returner Lawrence Woods III. The only thing was it was a little hard to see at times."
Forge midfielder Alex Achinioti-Jonsson said Wednesday morning, You can smell it but it hasn't been too bad. We could practice normally. Today is a lot worse than yesterday, though.
The locker-room was pretty isolated, but as soon as you opened the door to go out where our cleats are, you felt it right away. It started smelling like smoke."
The air wasn't as bad in Hamilton as it was in Toronto and Ottawa at times. Achinioti-Jonsson lives in Toronto and while walking his dog there, his mouth got dry and his throat became raspy.
The Argonauts are on a bye week so weren't practicing anyway, but the Redblacks had to cancel outdoor practice Tuesday and move inside for a short walk-through on the tiled floor of the nearby Aberdeen Pavilion, and on Wednesday moved practice to an indoor facility outside the city. Inflatable domes the club might normally use in bad weather weren't an option because they pump in outside air.
From Day 1 we've talked about having uncontrollable factors during the year, based on adversity, and whatever we do this week to prepare we're going to Montreal to play on Saturday," Ottawa GM Shawn Burke told The Spec Wednesday.
The air quality in Montreal is scheduled to be OK for playing but a CFL spokesperson said the X-factor is always the possibility of a change in the strength or direction of the wind. Over the May long weekend, an exhibition game in Calgary had to be delayed when the wind suddenly switched direction and smoke from the Alberta wildfires made conditions temporarily unsafe. The wind also blew in the possibility of lightning strikes, forcing another delay at half time.
The CFL has a meteorologist monitoring weather conditions and for threats such as wildfire smoke, representatives from the league, the CFL's Chief Medical Officer, both teams and both teams' player associations, are informed and also consulted.
Smyrniotis said the past two days evoked memories of the Manitoba wildfires during the early part of the 2021 season when the CPL brought all teams to Winnipeg to play in bubble" conditions.
The smoke was so bad the most you could spend outside was two minutes," Smyrniotis recalled. We were locked in the hotel for two days."
It bordered on ironic that Wednesday was the day the Ticats also announced they would be bringing back their steel-grey third jerseys twice this season. Had they been wearing them in Wednesday's practice, on a deep bomb Bo Levi Mitchell might have had trouble picking out his receivers against an increasingly ashen backdrop.
Steve Milton is a Hamilton-based sports columnist at The Spectator. Reach him via email: smilton@thespec.com