While his teammates were battling through the first week of training camp, Jake Thomas was on a special assignment back home.
Thomas, a hard-nosed defensive tackle and the longest-tenured member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, now in his 11th season, has been on daddy daycare duty for the first parts of camp. He and his wife, Sarah, welcomed their second child and first daughter, Avery, to the world on May 9.
Indeed, it was a busy and exciting couple of weeks in the Thomas household, where the new father had been helping change diapers and keeping his young son Emmitt busy while mom does the feedings and recovers from a C-section birth. Emmett just turned two years old a few days earlier, on May 5.
Todd Korol / THE CANADIAN PRESS files
Jake Thomas (left), seen here celebrating the Blue Bombers, 2019 Grey Cup victory with Adam Bighill, recently celebrated the birth of his daughter, Avery.
“There hasn’t been too much sleeping going on,” said a beaming Thomas, who returned to the city on Thursday and was limited in practice Friday as he works to get back into practice shape. “I probably still left a little too early, but my wife gets it. She understands football, and I was just lucky enough that the team allowed me to stay there.”
Thomas said they decided not to advertise the pregnancy publicly on social media, and as was the case with their first child, they opted not to find out the gender until birth. It made for an awesome surprise, with Thomas now a proud member of Team Girl Dad.
“Anyone who knows my wife knows that she likes to know everything — she’s that type of person. She said there are so few surprises now in life, let’s just have a little surprise with the kids,” Thomas said. “It’s now about trying to be a better man, show my daughter what a man should be. Not that I wasn’t before, but just seems a bit more important now.”
Thomas has left his family back home near Fredericton, N.B., with the plan to have them join him in Winnipeg once things get more settled. His crew has lived in Winnipeg the last two football seasons.
While Thomas was grateful to the team for giving him the much-needed time off, head coach Mike O’Shea said the decision to let him be there for his family was a no-brainer. The Bombers would do the same thing for any player, the coach noted, rookie or veteran.
Case in point: Winnipeg let rookie quarterback Tyrrell Pigrome leave just prior to training camp to head home to Maryland to see the birth of his daughter, Lavani. Pigrome had been with the team for just a few days, competing at rookie camp before leaving.
Thomas said he gave the club a heads up that his wife was due around the first week of May when he had his exit interview last season. As for Pigrome, he, too, informed the team’s scouting staff when they were first interested in him and then to O’Shea when the baby was about to arrive.
“I don’t think there’s any other choice. We wouldn’t do it any other way,” said O’Shea. “That is such a big event compared to a couple of practices. I hope people would trust us enough to make that decision.”
There will be at least one more baby arriving this season, as receiver Nic Demski and fiancee Vanessa get ready to welcome their new bundle of joy sometime next month.
“It’ll definitely be a different start to the season in many ways, but I’m excited for it,” Demski told the Free Press. “It’ll be a new adventure, so it’ll be fun.”
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Quarterback Zach Collaros was missing on Friday and is expected to be away for a few days as he deals with some personal matters. No other information was provided about the two-time reigning CFL most outstanding player.
“As many as he needs,” O’Shea said when asked how many days his starting QB might be gone.
In the meantime, that means more valuable reps for No. 2 Dru Brown and the two rookies, Pigrome and Josh Jones, both of whom are battling for the third spot and role of short-yardage QB.
O’Shea provided health updates on linebacker Adam Bighill and running back Brady Oliveira. Bighill has been sidelined since the beginning of training camp, while Oliveira has been absent the last few days.
“They’re going to be ready when they’re ready,” the coach said. “Even when they’re ready, we’ll probably hold them out another day.”
Such is life in training camp, where players are held out sometimes over minor ailments, which can be especially true for an experienced roster such as Winnipeg’s, where you just want to ensure everyone is at top health for the regular season. O’Shea wasn’t worried about either player and doesn’t expect them to be out much longer.
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The CFL has announced two new streaming services, including one called CFL Preseason Live and the other, CFL+. Both services are free, with information on how to sign up available on the league’s website (cfl.ca).
CFL Preseason Live provides viewers an opportunity to live stream exhibition games that aren’t being covered already by league broadcasters TSN and RDS. That means in Winnipeg, Bomber fans are no longer shut out from watching their team open the preseason against the Edmonton Elks on Saturday, May 27.
As for CFL+, it’s exclusively for an international audience, including the U.S., with different restrictions depending on where you reside. In the U.S., 47 regular-season games can be live-streamed, with the remaining 34 exclusively on the CBS Sports Network. Outside the U.S., there will be access to all 81 regular-season games.
The games that aren’t streamed on a national network will be streamed on the league’s website.
Twitter: @jeffkhamilton
Jeff Hamilton
Multimedia producer
After a slew of injuries playing hockey that included breaks to the wrist, arm, and collar bone; a tear of the medial collateral ligament in both knees; as well as a collapsed lung, Jeff figured it was a good idea to take his interest in sports off the ice and in to the classroom.
