Rider's year?

A few weeks ago a friend of mine from home (Yorkton) had the gall to ask me -- seriously, mind you -- whether I had defected from the Riders and became a Stamps fan yet. The audacity of this question is beyond me. I grew up a die hard rider fan. Even though I was only 6, I vividly remember where I was when the Rider's brought home the Grey Cup for the second time. I was boarding an airplane in the Regina airport. I can't remember where, but I mean, come on, I was six.

On top of the die-hard green blood that flows through me, it's not even football season yet!

All of that aside, I think the Rider's are fielding a much better team this year. Roy Shivers and our man Danny Barrett have been putting in a lot of overtime this off-season trying to give us fans what we've wanted for so long -- at least a home playoff game. Both of their careers in Regina are on the line this year, and they know it. Both of them love Regina, the province of Saskatchewan and all of its people, and, can you believe it -- they want to stay there!

We've dropped McCallum and Nealon, both of whom were on the roster for at least a year too long. Unfortunately we lost Corey Holmes, but I think it was necessary to drop him. A necessary evil you might say.

Argueably the biggest signing of the off-season has been Kerry Joseph (who will now be sporting McCallum's hopefully not-cursed old number 4). One of the few good things to come of Ottawa folding is the Riders have once again got an incredibly solid quarterbacking core. Joseph will most likely be the number one man, with Marcus Crandall (who is an excellent QB as well) backing him up. Currently Rocky Butler is occupying the number three spot, but I've heard rumors that we picked someone up out of University of North Carolina, whose name escapes me at the moment.

Another stellar pickup was Jason Armstead, also a positive byproduct of the Ottawa CFL team folding. Armstead pads an already potent receiving core that features the likes of Matt Dominguez, Jason French and Corey Grant to name a few.

It's Kenton Keith's make or break year with the Riders. If he does well, he will become the franchise player he's been touted as for the past year. If he performs subpar at all, he will most likely go the way of Shivers and Barrett if they have an off year.

With such returning stars on the other side of the ball such as Reggie Hunt, Nate Davis, Fred Childress, Omarr Morgan, Jackie Mitchell and LaDouphyous McCalla to name a very select few, we should have one of the top defensive teams to go along with the outstanding offense.

While it is yet to be seen how the new team will play together, on paper we are about to field an absolutely great team, and it's got all of Riderville excited. I am completely pumped, and I can't wait for June 3 when I will be in Edmonton cheering on the proper green team in our first exhibition match of the year.